


Sedition

by Niko_Nightwind



Series: Recast Steel [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Artificial Intelligence, BAMF Quatre, Badass, Broken Families, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empathy, Ensemble Cast, Espionage, Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Gritty, Human Trafficking, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Mecha, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Morally Ambiguous Character, Multi, On the Run, Permanent Injury, Politics, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Quatre Raberba's Uchuu no Kokoro | Space Heart, Rare Pairings, Rebellion, Sarcasm, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, Terrorism, Unconventional Families, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 385,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niko_Nightwind/pseuds/Niko_Nightwind
Summary: In a world where Libra fell 3 years ago, eventually your wounds have been licked clean & there's more to life than just getting by. Sometimes conflict, a revolution, becomes inevitable... and who wouldn't want to win?





	1. Ordinary

**Author's Note:**

> Editing this as we go, so please have a little bit of patience with me. Some of the changes are continuity-based. The beginning of each chapter will have notes about anything that changed from the original.
> 
>  
> 
> \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> If you’ve wandered in here on accident, be warned that this is a sequel to my fic ‘Survival’. You can read this first if you really feel you must, but you’re going to get lost damned fast if you do; the plotline is rather involved.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero goes on a road trip and everyone else handles their day to day routines in the lovely spring of 198.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we’re back!  
> And it’s April 7th – just because the story has to start on an auspicious day and/or the world revolves around Relena… *snorts* Or something, at any rate. It’s now the third anniversary of the start of the altered Operation Meteor carried out by the gundam pilots. Incidentally, Relena’s turning eighteen on this day, so we can roughly gauge everyone else’s age from there.  
> Also, it’s the future and very international and was never specified or shown in canon, so I vote the new school year for all boys and girls (the ones bothering to go) starts in January.  
> \--  
> Edit notes: Minor grammar shifts/fixes, as well as a small amount of increased exposition in Leia's scene and a few more details in Odin's last scene.

**_-_ **

**_ Ordinary _ **

**_\--_ **

_ Because everyone has their own definition for the plain and the exceptional. _

**_\--_ **

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**April 7 th 198 – Saturday – Plzeň, Czech Republic – Early Morning**

            “Good morning, young man!” Calista called out. 

            The blonde teenager blinked, then turned and smiled back at her, looking a little sheepish.  After a considering glance, he shrugged and walked over.  Calista felt her smile widen; she could see him smelling the air now in a happy sort of way.  _Another customer._  

            As he reached the stand, he folded his hands into his pockets in an oddly… formulated way.  “You must be having a good morning,” he decided. 

            “It’s always a good morning,” she returned happily.  “I’m still here to greet you, aren’t I?”  She allowed him a moment to react to that, which had him shrugging, before moving onto business.  “What can I get for you?” 

            He blinked as though confused for a moment before glancing at the menu above his head and frowning.  “I’m afraid I can speak the language but not read it… what would you recommend?” 

            “Are you new to the area?” she asked curiously. 

            He shook his head, and for a moment that looked as thought that was all he would say, but then he admitted, “I’ve never stayed long, is all.” 

            “Ah.”  Well it wasn’t any of her business in any case.  “How about some koláce?”  When he only tilted his head slightly, she smiled and started putting it together.  “It’s a kind of pastry, very traditional…” 

-

***

-

**Gent, Belgium**

            Kaelyn shared a smile with Suzanne across the diner as she brought breakfast over to the group of young people at table three.  It was a fairly busy morning, but not so much that she couldn’t appreciate their antics.  They had been overly excitable from the moment they came in, trying to tease her as readily as they were each other… and it was a nice change from the usual taciturn morning crowd that stared into their coffee mugs without break. 

            “Here we are,” she murmured as she came up and one of the men smacked another in the arm for something he had just said, while the rest tried not to break out snickering again.  “Spinach and Mushroom Omelette, one Breakfast Sampler, a Viva La French Toast Combo-” 

            “Traitor,” the blonde man quipped, making the others snort even as the other stuck out his tongue and happily took his breakfast from her. 

            “And one Decadent Dally Blueberry Stack,” Kaelyn finished, saying the silly name of the pancake entrée with a bit more flair than she normally did, winking at them… and laughing herself as the youngest-looking of the men winked back at her.  Feeling a little silly herself, she set the plate down in front of the one girl in the group as if it were something precious, which set the blonde woman giggling a bit helplessly as she eyed the five inch tall stack in pure disbelief. 

            “Oh my God… how did you talk me into this?” she asked as she stared at it. 

            “That is _definitely_ decadent,” the youngest decided as he speared a sausage off his plate. 

            “I can’t eat that much,” she protested.  “I’m not even sure how to cut _into_ it without the whole thing falling over…” 

            “Carefully,” the blonde returned easily, and she rolled her eyes. 

            “Extra carefully,” added the man across the table, cutting into his French toast. 

            “Extremely carefully,” the youngest continued, not missing a beat.

            The woman started to giggle again as the blonde reached across the table and smacked a piece of toast out of the youngest’s hand… and stuck it in his own mouth.  “You have no manners, Lin.”  He started rooting around in his pockets. 

            “He’s already eating!” he protested, gesturing at… 

            “Oh my goodness!” Kaelyn protested, staring in dismay at the plate that she would have _sworn_ was already halfway empty – though most of it seemed to currently still be in his mouth.  The man looked happy as a clam, though…  “I’ll get you folks some more coffee,” she muttered as she realized their mugs were low and that she was just standing there watching them. 

            “David is a lost cause,” she heard the blonde continue behind her, still around the toast.  “And in any cashe he’s eading _French toasht_ , ja traitor…” 

            “Ah rike rensh shoast, uck oo,” the man returned, not even pausing.  The woman’s giggles were getting more high-pitched. 

            “Aright, let’s top you all off,” Kaelyn muttered, having come back with the carafe… and blinked at the candle now sticking out the top of the pancake stack.  The blonde man dropped the toast out of his mouth onto his omelet and flicked open a lighter. 

            “Alright, Dave, now prove you can swallow _without_ losing it all on me this time, so you can sing…” 

            “You promised no singing!” the woman protested. 

            “Gross!” the youngest protested, looking like he wanted to edge away from David, then panicking upon remembering he was trapped on the inside of the booth. 

            “And _he_ promised _me_ he’d never eat that in front of me again, to stave off the trauma,” the blonde retorted.  “And I said _I_ wouldn’t sing.  I’m making _him_ sing.” 

            “It’s your birthday?” Kaelyn asked a little more loudly than she might have otherwise, catching the attention of all the other servers. 

            The young woman hid her face in her hands and groaned. 

-

***

-

**L2 – Late Morning**

            “I’m home,” Leia called out as she stepped inside the house, turning to close the door behind her.  “Marie?” 

            “Just a minute,” her daughter called back distractedly.  “Just let me finish translating this sentence.” 

            Leia smiled, moving to her room to change out of her scrubs; at least she’d only had a few clinic hours to take care of that morning.  Thankfully, Odin had been all for widening the scope of Marie’s education to include more formal subjects, especially when she had suggested German.  The practical uses had probably helped with that, of course, but she wanted them to agree on things whenever possible… so she wasn’t going to insist on things like Marie’s need to fully understand formal grammar and essay writing for a while yet.  So far, her daughter was entirely willing to go along with whatever Odin insisted on, and Leia wasn’t interested in testing her boundaries just yet. 

            Meagan had raised her far more than she had, after all; Leia had always been the one Marie came to for fun and pure love, never discipline.  She didn’t think her daughter would reject her or be obstinately disobedient, but she still wasn’t confident enough yet to believe that being more authoritative wouldn’t lose her some degree of her little girl’s affections. 

            She really appreciated Odin’s role in their lives.  Without that degree of separation, using a go between or a teacher, she and Marie would have had to find new boundaries for their relationship more quickly than either would have been comfortable with… and given how independent they both were, she imaged there would have been a few violently emotional missteps while they put their lives back together.  His presence – and the need to look after him during his surgical convalescence, giving them a mutual concern and goal – had eased the way considerably. 

            Marie was walking into the bedroom as she came back out of her closet.  “We can pick up the pottery tomorrow, right?” 

            “Probably,” Leia temporized.  “They said they were busy, so they might not have room in the kiln until around closing tomorrow.”  It had been a fun little thing to do; there was a shop a little ways away that had you paint unfinished pottery in whatever design you liked before they glazed and fired it so it was normal and glossy.  And of course, it was quite a novelty to girls raised in high society, where they had never washed dishes, let alone _made_ them. 

            Marie nodded a little to herself, thinking for a moment, then met her eyes again.  “I found a recipe I want to try for dinner later, but we don’t have everything we need in the house.” 

            Leia smiled.  “Well, let’s go to the store, then.”  Walking back out to the kitchen, she added, “Though we should check for a few other things we’re low on first and make a list.”  She pursed her lips.  “When did Odin say he would be back?” 

            “Another three days at the soonest, six at most.” 

            She didn’t question how immediate that answer was; after all, the two of them had been practically inseparable since they had met.  And really, after having him in her home for the past three months, it was strange to not come home and see him laid up on the couch, showing Marie something off the computer or out of a book. 

            _Nothing good ever lasts, though,_ she thought wistfully.  Once he came back from Earth, he would likely only stay for a handful of days before leaving again, and this time he would take Marie with him, German textbook and all; it would be safer, that way.  Now that he could move about more easily again, it was best for them both to stay at least somewhat on the move… though she had already extracted promises from both of them about keeping in touch while they wandered about Odin’s business. 

            She was decently hidden, living as she was, but it any long-term habits meant less security.  Heero Yuy was a ghost, and had already proven he could keep Marie safe from any who would seek to harm or use her for their own ends.  Even if he _wasn’t_ keeping her up on her education the way he was more than happy to, having someone like him guarding her daughter would have been work pulling her out of school.  _Not that that’s really a factor anyway._   The two of them had taken the core GED tests last month, and while Odin’s knowledge was bizarrely specialized, Marie had scored well across the board – she really _had_ been attending one of the best schools in the colonies, before Dekim kidnapped her.  _We can talk secondary schools after everything stabilizes a little more; she’s only twelve._   That was advanced even by colonial ACET standards. 

            _As it stands, traveling with Odin works like an apprenticeship._   He _was_ teaching her useful life skills – just not traditional ones.  All the same, they were skills that Treize would have wanted her to have.  _Things he would have liked to teach her himself, even,_ she mused, pushing away the grief once again. 

            _There’s no use in dreaming of what could have been.  Better to simply count your blessings._   Odin would protect Marie with his life, and he was already teaching her everything he knew – though with ethical boundaries, thank goodness.  He had brought those up before Leia could question him. 

            _‘I’ve done a lot of things I never had much choice about, and sometimes, I’ve hated myself for it.  Sometimes things happen and you don’t get any say, but… knowing more lets you limit the damage.  Being able to **do** more means you have more opportunities to **make** choices, instead of just fighting to stay alive.  With how Marlé’s already had people trying everything away from her; she should know how to fight back.’_  

            In any case, his reaction when she had asked him about what he intended to do with Marie’s increased sharpshooting abilities had been what sold her: pure _offense_ that she thought he would put the girl in a position where she might be forced to kill.  Knowing Mariemaia, it would likely come to that eventually – she was so much more like Treize than herself – at some point, Leia _knew_ she would choose to take a life rather than let a friend or an innocent die…  But Odin agreed with her in that the longer that event could be put off, the better. 

            _However odd the boy is, he’s good, through and through._   But _oh_ , how strange he could be, sometimes. 

            “Three to six days left to ourselves,” Leia mused, sitting down to pull her shoes back on.  _I’m just going to make the best of what time we have._   Smirking, she admitted, “It feels weird, now, to not come home and immediately get bombarded with questions about, say, why I wanted to pain the walls red – as if it’s the strangest thing he’s ever heard of.”  She huffed out a laugh, offering her daughter a conspiratorial smile.  “I’d only just gotten used to his odd questions, and he runs off on some intergalactic errand with no warning.”  Marie grinned broadly at her, so she added, “Shame on him, mixing me up just when I’d gotten firm footing again.” 

            Marie giggled.  “It’s what he’s good at, Mom.” 

**-**

*******

-

**Prague, Czech Republic – Around noon**

            “So… hi.” 

            He couldn’t help but cringe a little as the other teenager gave him a disbelieving look.  _Okay, that sounded a little stupid…_   Before he could think of something else to say in recovery, though, the blonde simply returned it.  “Hi.” 

            …Still giving no opening to start any kind of real conversation.  And it wasn’t like they had any kind of real connection, or even knew each other’s real _names_.  The only thing he knew that they probably agreed on was politics, and that was _not_ a conversation to have in public. 

            He’d only been told enough to understand that relations with this guy were important, but not _why_.  So he figured he’d do his best to make a decent impression and do good at the job of escorting him out to the hidden hanger, despite the fact that he almost never left his desk and computer and had _never_ done anything like this before.  He’d tried to protest when Po handed him this mission, but she’d said he was the only one on hand who was both not working on something critical and had no record to be recognized for, which eliminated most of the risk of being caught out.  Then it had been noted that they were about the same age so they should be able to travel as friends or cousins without anything seeming odd about them… 

            But someone had forgotten to mention how _odd_ the guy was.  And he refused to believe that they hadn’t known, because it was way too obvious to be missed. 

            He blinked as he realized that the guy’d said something, ran it back through his head… “What?  Why?”   _Why would he think I wasn’t okay?_  

            He blinked back.  “You’re… skittish.”  When Neil decided not to even try responding to that one, he frowned slightly.  “I don’t know your name.” 

            _…Po wants him to **blend in** with this guy?_   “Neil.” 

            The blonde smiled a little.  “Odin.”  After another moment, he added, “You’re not used to carrying.” 

            His heart stopped.  “ _What?_ ” he demanded in a hiss. 

            Odin leaned back slightly, looking surprised at Neil’s reaction to being casually told he was carrying a _gun_ when they’d only known each other for maybe three minutes.  Neil _was_ carrying, and yeah, he didn’t all that often, but- 

            “You need to keep it somewhere less obvious, or wear baggier clothes,” the blonde continued casually.  “The bulge shows.”  He gave Neil an expectant look.  “We’re not going anywhere until you fix it.” 

            Neil stared at him for a moment, mouth dry, trying to decide if he was being belittled…  or if ‘Odin’ was honestly trying to be _helpful_. 

            “You’re a risk to Po’s operation too when you make mistakes like that, not just yourself.”  He tilted his head slightly.  “Find somewhere private and I’ll keep watch so you’re not caught out.” 

            He had the sinking feeling that this was going to be a _long_ day. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            “Kay!”  Heavy steps clambered up the staircase.  Amos swung through the doorway with a grin as Duo looked up.  “Customer needs you,” he explained cheerfully before focusing on the suddenly _awake_ infant.  “Oops.” 

            Duo rolled his eyes and threw back the blankets; he’d only _just_ gotten her to sleep too.  “Congratulations,” he informed the war orphan as he handed over the grumpy infant.  “Have a baby.”  Amos just sighed a little resignedly as his teacher jammed his feet into his shoes.  _He’d_ been almost asleep too…  He really hadn’t needed the nap, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t groggy from being jolted back awake. 

            “Hey, Nene,” Amos cooed, bouncing the little girl slightly before trying to tuck her more against his chest… and she was just tired enough to not resist too much.  Duo smiled a little at the image.  Amos, unlike Nolan, was _good_ with kids – which made sense, seeing as he had half-raised the younger ones at the church.  Melissa’s little brother just didn’t have the patience for Renee… or really for anyone beyond his textbooks, half the time. 

            _Speaking of…_   “What time is it?” 

            “Um… two something.”  The boy tried to settle Renee into more of a horizontal position, but she wasn’t having it.  “Two twenty?” 

            Huh, he’d only been actually dozing for maybe ten minutes.  _And Nolan’s not due back for another hour or so, so Nee should be down by then._   “Thanks.”  He pulled on a sweater as he stepped out on the landing.  No one was in the little entry area, so he hurried down the stairs and swung into the garage with a smile.  “Can I help you?” 

            Melissa offered him a little smile as the customer, a man who looked like he was somewhere in his thirties, gave him an appraising look.  “You’re Kasey von Koll?” 

            “Sure am.”  A slew of other things too, but he’d settle for plain Kasey.  “Did someone recommend you to us?”  Referrals were _gold_ , and he tried to make it up to the people who’d given them; it was good business. 

            “Ah, yes,”  He gestured to a piece of equipment resting on the table.  “Your wife here said you were familiar with this model, but it’s a tricky thing, and the last guy I asked pretended he was better than he was.” 

            Duo frowned, moving around to look.  “Who did you go to?”  Reading the brand name, he fought off a grimace.  “Oh, yeah, the Keirens can be nasty… slapdash construction, bad coding, you shift one thing and half the time you fuck up something else, and the parts aren’t standard so you have to alter any replacement components.  Mm, this is an 1840-IS?  I’ve played with the 1840-F model more than a few times, this one shouldn’t be much different…  I think the main difference was supposed to be a shift in the fan arrangement, but I can look it up tonight to be sure.”  He met the man’s eyes.  “How soon do you need it back?  Anything from Keiren is probably going to take me more than a day, even if it turns out you only have one issue to work though.”  He let out a little chuckle.  “Right, I’m sorry…  I still need to ask what it’s hurting for in the first place, huh?” 

            The man let out a deep belly laugh, obviously pleased.  “Well, Raymond _did_ say you knew what you were about: you’ve about won me over.”  He shook his head a little.  “I don’t need it for a few more weeks, really, but the sooner I get it back the better.  Can you get me a price estimate?” 

            Melissa stepped back out from the office – she’d left the garage while he was eying the pile of scrap that had the nerve of trying to pass itself off as viable technology – with the paperwork they had for everyone they worked with.  “We have a base set price for looking into it, then with jobs like this we normally get in touch with you once we find the problem and know if we’re going to have to get any parts, or if it’s-” 

            Renee let out an utterly pitiful wail, overhead.  Duo sighed and gave ‘Liss a tired look.  “Are you _sure_ she had a full bottle earlier?  She didn’t pass it off on our invisible dog or something?” 

            Melissa sighed a little herself.  “I think she’s started teething.” 

            “No,” Duo decided. 

            “No?”  The Dutch woman looked amused.  “How do you know?”

            “Because it needs to be something I can fix, like needing more solid food because she’s still hungry after a bottle.” 

            Their customer let out another belly laugh even as the baby started screaming outright; whatever Amos was trying, she was _not_ impressed.  “Well, her lungs sound healthy…  I wouldn’t have thought you had a little one up there though.  How old?” 

            “My niece,” Duo explained.  “She’s ten months, now.  My sister headed out to work an hour ago, so we’re watching her.  Normally she’s a dream, but…”  He shrugged. 

            The older man chuckled.  “It’s around that age when they usually start to really be a handful,” he confided.  As Renee let out an even _louder_ scream, he shook his head.  “I trust you know what you’re doing, I can iron out the rest with Mrs. von Koll now if you need to look after your niece.” 

            He offered the man a grateful smile before leaning over to peck Melissa on the cheek.  “Thanks.”  Dashing back through the door, he called, “Amos?” 

            “I have _no_ idea!” the fourteen-year-old protested.  Stepping out on the landing as Duo made his way up, he looked bewildered.  “She’s just _mad_.” 

            The older teen grinned, shaking his head as he held out his arms and the little girl tried to practically leap out of Amos’ grip into his own.  “Nah… she just likes me better.” 

            Amos scowled as Renee immediately went quiet and even went so far as to flop against his chest, breathing like she’d just run a marathon even though she’d barely started crawling.  “That’s so not fair,” the kid grumbled.  “Abby didn’t do that…” 

            “Abby’s always been used to anyone and everyone constantly poking her or picking her up,” Duo reminded him, patting her back gently… wishing he’d grabbed a rag because he was _positive_ she was getting baby spit all over his shirt. _No, even better, **toddler** spit._   He tried to remember what she’d eaten so far today and how likely any of it was to leave a stain.  “Nee’s not against other people, but she’s really only used to a few of us _really_ handling her, and when she’s dumb tired she usually only takes to me or her mom.”  _Eh, at least it’s a dark shirt…  It’ll just be baby spit crunchy._   He’d actively stopped wearing light-colored shirts around Renee after he couldn’t get the damn carrots out of his white one. 

            “Why’d you hand her off then?”  Apparently the orphan was altogether annoyed… maybe he and Nolan were friends for more than just the fact that they lived together. 

            Duo rolled his eyes.  “Because I didn’t _know_ she was that tired.  Go help Melissa or something.”  _Maybe she’ll crash now that she’s tired herself out yelling._   Toeing his shoes back off he headed back for the futon, glancing down at the again quiet child as he rubbed her back.  “You wanna play favorites, huh?  You hurt his feelings, you know.  Yeah, nobody likes getting yelled at, sweetie.  Gotta try and be nice, huh?”  She didn’t really move in response to him talking to her, so he carefully sat back down on the blankets and shifted her weight, only to feel a soft tug… 

            She was chewing on a thick wrinkle of his sweater. 

            _Damn it, she **is** teething._  

-

***

-

**China – 10:00pm**

            “And you used to complain about _me_ working too much…” 

            Shui didn’t look up.  “I’m only working eighteen hours a day once a week or so; you were doing it _every day_.”  He shook his head a little, leaning back in his chair to meet Wufei’s eyes.  “I’m _still_ not sure how you were doing that; you were only sleeping four hours.” 

            Wufei shrugged, slipping out of his shoes.  “I’ve never needed much sleep.” 

            “Yeah I can tell,” Shui noted tiredly.  “You still barely sleep – now you just get better food.” 

            The other teenager snorted.  “And yet, I’m never sure if the food is really worth Xiu Juan’s company.” 

            “Must be, with how much time you spend over there.”  He grinned a little.  “You always complain, but you still follow Kailì home all the time.  You should bring some back for me.” 

            Wufei snorted.  “If I have to brave Lao and his family, you’re not getting the benefits for free.”  Dropping onto his bed, he added, “You can go annoy Kailì enough to make him tase you all by yourself.” 

            Shui just sighed.  “I need to find people who _aren’t_ insane to cook for me.” 

            “Don’t we all?”  Leaning forward, he glanced over the page his roommate was working on.  “So what’s this now?” 

-

***

-

**Brussels, Belgium – Evening**

            Jake sighed a little as he stepped out into the courtyard, looking around.  He knew she was out here, but he couldn’t strictly _see_ her… 

            “I don’t want to come inside yet.” 

            He let out a morose chuckle as he made his way over, hands in pockets.  “Even if I go thrash your brother for you?” 

            She wasn’t looking at him.  “He’d have you taken away from me.” 

            Jake sighed again and shrugged, even though she couldn’t see it.  There was a fair chance that she was right… and even though he would be back fairly fast, the fact that Zechs had done it in the first place would hurt her deeply. 

            The prince had _not_ been impressed with either of their judgment after Amsterdam. 

            At first, it had been an almost moot point, recovering as he had been, and Relena too, having had a relapse after the strain from the riot.  Then there had been the physical therapy, and starting to teach Relena to ingrain defensive responses.  They had begun to leave Brussels again for short trips at the end of February: doing the surveying of the hydroponics houses themselves instead of just sending Dorothy, checking in on areas Zechs grudgingly approved for her…  His concern and paranoia had been obvious, but it was only to be expected after the riot – though Jake maintained that it could _not_ have in any way been their fault, or at all predictable.  It was smothering, and patronizing as fuck, but he had been gritting his teeth and bearing it out, even as he hated being dismissed… 

            And then Heavyarms had shown up. 

            If he had found Zechs’ attitude obnoxious before, Relena had found it nigh unbearable, even as she had fought to spend more time with her brother to gain his trust back, or to just get to know him…  But the man _didn’t_ trust her.  In truth, he probably never had, really… and the fact that Relena was smart enough to realize that just hurt her all the more.  Jake had always known that Zechs never trusted those around him – that he honestly _couldn’t_ make himself lean back on those closest to him – but sweet, loving Relena couldn’t even imagine thinking like that.  Instead of confiding in her, the prince had locked her up and handled her with kid gloves, acting as though he cared while he stopped listening to her altogether... even though she was anything _but_ a little girl after Amsterdam. 

            And in the month or so since Heavyarms’ appearance, he had given up even any _pretense_ of listening to her.  Even canceling something as simple as have dinner with her on her birthday when he had nothing pressing occurring, despite having _promised_ …  He wasn’t even willing to give her the kind of loyalty you would offer a precocious child now.  He avoided her in passing, and had ordered his aides to simply turn her away. 

            The colonel had been hoping his old friend would at least make an exception for _today_ , even for just an hour…  But instead, when Jake had tried to yell at him for it, the man had calmly told him he was sure Relena understood his duties, and left _him_ to pick up the pieces. 

            He hadn’t protested when she asked for some time alone. 

            Coming up behind her now, though, he grimaced out past the eaves at the falling rain.  _At least she has common sense when being morose._   If she’d been actually standing in the pouring water he would’ve had to protest.  “You must be cold enough by now,” he noted instead. 

            “Cold enough,” she agreed quietly.  “Not quite numb yet, though.”  She looked over her shoulder to give him a wry look.  “You know, three years ago I would have insisted on standing out _in_ that.” 

            Amused at how she was more or less mirroring his own thoughts, he gave her a tired grin of his own.  “But you probably also would have given in and come back inside by now,” he argued. 

            She chuckled slightly.  “True.”  Sighing, she turned to face him a bit more and gave him a sad smile.  “At least the rest of the day was fun.” 

            “Yeah.”  Grinning slightly, he noted, “How long do you think it’ll be before Dorothy forgives me for her jacket at lunch?” 

            She laughed at that, and his grin widened.  Dorothy really _had_ been asking for it, in his opinion – though some might argue that he’d had a little too much fun making mischief today.  “I wouldn’t focus on forgiveness,” Relena advised.  “You should watch out for revenge.” 

            “I’ll keep it in mind.”  Falling quiet again, he stepped back to lean against the wall and watch the rain pattering down into the courtyard, lost in his own thoughts as he let his friend return to hers. 

            The imagery _did_ suit their moods. 

            He shifted his shoulder, testing its range of movement and stretching subtly; recovering from an injury was never as simple as they tried to make it out to be in books or movies, and it was even worse when you were used to having a higher level of performance than was normal.  He was healed, but the joint was still a long ways from what _he_ deemed acceptable, let alone conditioned to the degree he demanded of his body. 

            _I wonder if Zechs is done healing from whatever was wrong with him yet._   The prince had said before that he expected to be better by now, but so much had happened since then that could have disrupted the process…  Some small part of Jake wanted to believe that the prince was brushing his sister off so much because he was trying to hide that weakness the same way a wild animal would.  That maybe he was being so avoidant because he was terrified, or clueless, and didn’t want to risk anyone realizing it.  That maybe he was on some kind of medication that was affecting his moods. 

            But at the same time, he recognized the rationalization for what they were.  And even if they were true they were still only excuses, if possibly good ones… and excuses didn’t really matter in the long run – just effort and results.  If Zechs couldn’t grow up enough to not only acknowledge his mistakes, but step forward and do his best to actually _change_ what was happening, whatever the cost to himself, then there wasn’t any point in him or Lena wishing.  The Lightning Count was nothing if not stubborn. 

            And… Jake found himself not really caring what state of health his old comrade was in.  He’d had plenty of chances to back down or change already, and Jake had _tried_ to help too.  _Zechs made his bed several times over now; he can lie in it._  

            It was nearly ten minutes before Relena spoke again.  “Jake?”  She didn’t turn away from the rain to look back at him. 

            He did her the same courtesy of not focusing on her; the pattering rain was soothing, in a way.  “Yeah?” 

            “…I’m not sure I can stay here any more.” 

            He did focus on her at that – but she hadn’t moved, and still seemed calm, so he waited. 

            “He doesn’t really care, Jake.  He doesn’t care, and he’s holding me back, and sooner or later if I stay here I’m going to lash out at him and find myself even more entrenched.”  Turning to meet his eyes, she decided, “I need you to look into potential places where we can go, that he’ll allow but have little reach.” 

            Her face was dry, and though her eyes were sad…  She had that same steel he had seen in her ever since waking up after his surgery in December: that same deep resolution.  _How can Zechs not see this?_   To be so willfully blind, to miss that she wasn’t simply being strung along by her heart without her head to follow anymore, to think her still a willful child… 

            He gave her another sad smile.  “Your brother is a moron.” 

            Her returning smile said she appreciated the opinion. 

-

***

-

**April 8 th 198 – Sunday – Eastern Carpathian Mountains – Early Morning Hours**

            Sally looked up as her office door opened, glancing at the clock and realizing she had lost track of time as she _knew_ who this was…  Only to stifle a little laugh when Neil, one of her more normally techie-inclined fighters, came in first, looking absolutely wrung out.  Heero, it seemed, hadn’t lost his touch – or lack thereof – with people.  A moment later, none other than Heero Yuy followed him in, eyes sweeping the room and cataloguing all the details, she was sure. 

            He was taller than she remembered, and shockingly blonde – though it suited him well enough – but the main difference she could immediately suss out was his almost casual bearing.  He was more… loose-limbed; his body language didn’t immediately scream that he was trained to be lethal, which made sense, if he’d been hiding for the past two years.  Then he met her eyes and _smiled_ …  And for a second or two she was surprised enough to simply stare instead of smiling back. 

            She suspected, then, that far more had changed than his appearance. 

            Smiling broadly back now – it was _nice_ to see him show more emotion – she greeted, “You look well, Heero.  I was starting to wonder if Chang had just dreamt meeting you last summer.” 

            He shrugged a little.  “I was busy.  It took time to finish what I was doing and wrap up a few other loose ends.”  He tilted his head slightly.  “I assumed that if you were in charge, your group would still hold some power by the time I was ready.” 

            She nodded her head slightly, and gestured for both boys to sit; Neil had probably been through enough today that he deserved to know what service he’d done in bringing Heero into the fold.  She’d worried about sending someone more recognizable, and Neil had played the guide well even if he appeared to be at wit’s end.  “Xutao said you had thought he was Wufei?” 

            The gundam pilot shrugged.  “I caught a glimpse of him in Jerusalem, after hearing him talk.  They have the same accent, same build, and once I started following his hunters they were always referring to him as Chang.”  He frowned a little, looking to the side.  “Quatre had disappeared two months before that… I suppose I was overly hopeful that I could find one of the others.” 

            _Well, that answers one question._   “Wufei and Xutao share a large number of traits,” she agreed.  She took a deep breath before phrasing her next question.  _Here goes nothing; he always did prefer the blunt approach._   “Is there any chance that you might be able to recreate the Zero System?” 

            He blinked; she got the impression that he hadn’t been expecting that question.  “I have the information to do so,” he admitted after a moment.  “But not the means.”  He appeared to think for another long moment.  “I have the backup information from both Wing Zero and Sandrock, the blueprints to rebuild both the machines, but Zero…  That’s trickier.”  He frowned again.  “You’re aware that Treize is alive?” 

            Neil was gaping now as he realized exactly who he had spent his day being tormented by, and Sally couldn’t help a little smile.  Heero had never looked like much, but he was damn good at knocking people’s feet out from under them.  “I am,” she assured.  “I’m just not sure h-”  An alarm starting to chirp cut her off.  Standing, she beckoned to the young man who had once fought toe-to-toe against Zechs.  “Heavyarms is on final approach,” she explained over the noise.  “Neil, you’re dismissed.”  Exiting the room and walking towards the actual hanger, she continued explaining.  “We’ve been taking control of all satellites capable of sensing it in this hemisphere in order to hide where it’s coming home to as well as installing it with cloaking abilities, and we’re hoping they follow the cue we’ve left that there really is no change on control with the satellites.  So far, they think we’re using the same kind of stealth systems as Deathscythe.  Unfortunately, we haven’t had any luck figuring that one out, in all reality.  We’ve been trying, but apparently Professor G deserved his title of genius.” 

-

***

-

            “We’ve been trying, but apparently Professor G deserved his title of genius.” 

            _Which means she hasn’t found Duo yet,_ Odin concluded, grateful as the volume of the klaxon started to decrease.  Sally went on to explain what they would have heard if the approach had looked risky, or like the base might be in danger of discovery, and he carefully tucked the knowledge away as he continued to drink in the sight of the encampment around him. 

            They were organized and strong, that much was obvious.  Far better equipped than he, Trowa, or Wufei had been before, and possibly better than even Duo or Quatre.  Po was explaining now that this was one of several bases that MS could return to, each with the same precautions against being followed, while he had always been forced to find naturally shielding environments for shelter.  The cloaking systems on the gundams other than Deathscythe had been nothing to laugh at, but not as reliable as one could hope. 

            Having some kind of home to return to was a luxury he was only just beginning to understand, but one he found he rather liked.  Trowa had chosen well. 

            _I wonder how well set up Treize is._

            People were watching them curiously as they walked, though none approached.  Most appeared to be a little bemused as to why Po was focusing so completely on him, but then he met eyes with one and saw recognition hit a moment before the man cursed and ducked down a different hall. 

            He snorted slightly; Marie would probably appreciate hearing about that.  She would probably also find the details of his slow traipse across Europe today funny in ways he didn’t entirely follow as well… and would spend an hour or more afterwards trying to explain.  He was actually looking forward to it; Neil had been beyond frustrating to deal with, and a little light shed on the situation would be more than welcome.  Curious, he watched to see if anyone else reacted.  One more did, though he was shadowed by the first, so had likely been told…  And another looked highly calculative.  He was probably worth keeping in mind. 

            They entered the hanger just as the doors began opening to the darkness, and he looked to his watch.  It had taken time to travel inconspicuously all the way out here, and it was getting close to three in the morning; dawn wouldn’t be upon them for another four hours or so yet.  It had been a good time to conduct a raid, though he didn’t know the target yet; it was likely only just now hitting the news. 

            A few repainted Tauruses flew in first, carefully maneuvering into their docks, before he saw Heavyarms again.  The modifications were far more obvious with it so close, moving slowly.  Again, he was struck by all the differences that he had been pointing out to the Bartons over the last month…  _It’s hardly even the same machine, at this point._   Then again, if he never got more of his memory back, why _would_ Trowa have bothered to keep it the same when it was ill-suited in any case?  Soon enough the hangar doors were closing again, and he watched as the Taurus pilots finished their shutdown sequences and exited their cockpits… 

            _Why brown?_   It made sense to repaint the suits – he assumed they were out of the stock that Po’s resistance had been stealing from the Regime practically since its inception – but it was an unusual choice.  The Tauruses were done in the same dark chocolate brown as Heavyarms now sported as a base color instead of white, with pale tan and bright red sections accentuating the dark bodies.  Focusing again on Heavyarms, he realized it wasn’t the same shade of red as before either.  _Something symbolic?_  

            Trowa… hadn’t ever really been the type to fight with lesser support at his back, before. 

            A medical team was helping one of the Taurus pilots out of his machine, holding a seeping cloth to his head even as mechanical crew was crawling into the machine at the same time, wanting to begin assessing damage to the suit as soon as possible.  That one looked as though it had taken a good beating overall.  A few of the others showed some signs of damage as well, but only as much or less than he assumed the Maguanacs had incurred on a regular basis… and even as he thought that he focused on another of the pilots, wearing a traditional red cap and pulling at his long mustache in agitation. 

            _She has the Maguanacs?_   His opinion of Sally Po ratcheted up another few notches.  She had mentioned that they had good relations at one point when he was on _Peacemillion_ with her, and of course Quatre was missing and the Maguanacs had been a fighting force to reckon with long before they had banded behind him and Sandrock, but…  _How did she convince them to work for her?_   Po had shown time and again that she was obviously a good leader, but the Maguanacs, for all their talk of righteousness and equality, only followed those who were true warriors as well as compassionate.  Rashid and Quatre had both in spades, but while Sally led well, she wasn’t a terribly good _fighter_. 

            The immediate answer was that they might have taken to Trowa…  but he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to mind.  Trowa didn’t have _any_ of the qualities the Maguanacs valued in great enough amounts for them to have considered it.  He and Quatre had greatly appreciated each other’s company both before and after Winner’s psychotic episode, but Trowa would never be a leader; he lacked both the charisma and the staunch loyalty to singular ideas. 

            No… something else was going on here, and he was beginning to think he was about to be as caught off guard by it as he was by Xutao’s face last July.  He had missed something important.  He’d made a jump of logic or an assumption somewhere along the line that had skewed all his predictions, his expectations. 

            He watched, feeling almost like he was in a trance as the cockpit doors unfolded from the chest of the red and brown mobile suit, and a lithe figure waltzed out confidently, brushing back dark bangs.  Dark clothes, hair in a ponytail falling to mid-chest, the pilot stepped quickly into the foot saddle of the lift cord as it immediately began to lower at an accelerated rate, jumped off when it was still two feet off the ground, then turned to face them properly, moving at a brisk, predatory walk… 

            And smiled at the sight of him.  “Hey, Heero!  It’s good to see you.  It took you long enough.” 

            He never would have imagined her with long hair.  Just the same, he couldn’t stop the grin that tugged at his lips at the friendly, teasing greeting.  “It did,” he agreed.  “It’s good to see you too, Noin.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …You guys have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to write that… 
> 
> Thoughts? Reviews? Please? I don’t write for reviews, but it’s worth bearing in mind that I initially had half shelved this at about four pages long until someone new popped up to review and got me excited about the story again. I /do/ work faster with encouragement, or something… but as it goes. I’ll get there eventually anyhow, and I really try to make the wait as short as I can.


	2. Scavenger Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero and Noin are a force to be reckoned with, Shov is done with this shit, and everyone else spends their time scheming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit notes: Treize's internalized impromptu history lesson got butchered and redesigned. I was basically obsessing on the original run, and this is cleaner, as well as changed... and slightly more relevant to the actual story. Otherwise, it's just grammar and syntax upgrades. Enjoy!  
> \--  
> Okay, it’s been pointed out that, as this is a new story, it’s good to have a point of reference for everyone’s names (I mean… a) it’s a large cast, and b) there’s a lot of false names being used, so it’s kinda confusing sometimes). This story and its universe is admittedly far less constant in your head than in mine, so… I’m not going to do this again, but I’ll list off the currently known aliases and the names of some of the really main random characters in a cast of sorts? This is not all-inclusive… Though I may have managed to get carried away anyway. 
> 
>  
> 
> \---  
> Cast  
> \---
> 
> \- 01: Heero Yuy  
> \+ Odin Lowe  
> \+ “Yukio” (while posing as an exchange student in Jerusalem – it’ll never really be used again, I think…probably…)
> 
> \- Odin Lowe Sr. (long deceased, an assassin who raised the boy now known alternately as “Heero Yuy” or “Odin Lowe”)
> 
> \- Samuel Srona M.D.
> 
> \- Moira Srona
> 
> \- Mariemaia Barton/Khushrenada  
> \+ Mariemaia Barton  
> \+ Maria Benson  
> \+ Marianna Keissler  
> \+ Marlé Leia Lowe
> 
> \- Leia Barton  
> \+ Leyda Keissler M.D.
> 
> \- Dekim Barton (Leia’s father – deceased)
> 
> \- Trowa Barton (Leia’s brother –deceased – was assassinated at the start of Operation Meteor and replaced by the teenager now known as Trowa Barton or Adam Bloom)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> Amsterdam
> 
> \- 02: Duo Maxwell  
> \+ “Chaos” then shortened to “Kay”  
> \+ Kasey von Koll
> 
> \- Melissa “’Liss” von Koll (wife)  
> \+ Melissa Mehile (maiden)  
> \+ Melissa Maxwell
> 
> \- William Mehile (Melissa & Nolan’s father)
> 
> \- Nolan Mehile (Melissa’s younger brother)
> 
> \- Amos van Romondt
> 
> \- Karina “Rina” von Koll  
> \+ “Sin”  
> \+ Karina Tenbrook (maiden)
> 
> \- Lucas von Koll (Karina’s husband – deceased)
> 
> \- Doushovel “Shov” van Rhinn
> 
> \- Katrien Ruttenburg (Devil; was with Relena during the Amsterdam riot)
> 
> \- Father Espen
> 
> \- Sister Isabel Agtmael
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> \- 03: Trowa Barton  
> \+ Adam Bloom
> 
> \- Catherine Bloom (sister)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> \- 04: Quatre Raberba Winner
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> In China  
> \- 05: Chang Wufei  
> \+ Long Wu (current pseudonym)
> 
> \- Yu Shui (Wufei’s roommate & fellow engineer)
> 
> \- Lao Kailì (fellow engineer)
> 
> \- Lao Xiu Juan (Kailì’s wife)
> 
> \- Lao Yu Zi (Kailì’s oldest daughter)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> \- 06: Milliardo Peacecraft  
> \+ Zechs Marquise
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> \- Relena “Lena” Darlian-Peacecraft
> 
> \- Dorothy “Thea” Catalonia
> 
> \- Colonel Jacob “Jake” Miller
> 
> \- Jack Miller (Jake’s father)
> 
> \- Colonel David “Dave” Mitchell  
> \+ “Michael” – his codename when in reference to his work as an agent of Treize
> 
> \- Lieutenant Jerome “Rome” Moretti (bodyguard of Relena’s)
> 
> \- Lieutenant Lincoln “Lin” Sobrie (bodyguard of Relena’s)
> 
> \- Lieutenant Cassidy Foreman (former bodyguard of Relena’s; in Strike Force now, under Mitchell)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> \- 13: Treize Khushrenada  
> \+ “Tatem” or “Tate” – code name in emails from Váli and likely elsewhere
> 
> \- Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez (Treize’s second)
> 
> \- “Váli” (Treize’s primary informant in the Regime)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> In the Sahara
> 
> \- Roshan (in charge of the Cambyses encampment being followed)
> 
> \- Robby (leader of the Cambyses squadron being followed; trying to get them out)
> 
> \- Nick (was in photography)
> 
> \- Cory (young; anchors Robby and helps keep him calm when it’s too much)
> 
> \- Razo (actual friend to Robby; realizes that a lot of his ‘psychosis’ is an act)
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
>  
> 
> Sally Po’s Underground
> 
> \- Sally Po M.D.
> 
> \- 09: Lucrezia “Lu” Noin
> 
> \- Howard Oclaire
> 
> \- Hilde Schbeiker
> 
> \- Chang Xutao
> 
>  
> 
> \---

**-**

**_ Scavenger Hunt _ **

**\--**

_ Because it still counts, even if you don’t know what’s on the list. _

**_\--_ **

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**April 10 th 198 – Tuesday – Sahara Desert, Southeast Libya**

            The door opened more slowly than he remembered, started and stuttered a few times… but it _did_ still open. 

            He was glad; he’d been searching for this place for long enough that finding it only to not be able to gain entrance would have been more than he could take.  He had assumed that this place would have already been looted, but so far it looked as if maybe no one had known it was even here _to_ scavenge. 

            _And the passcode hasn’t changed; that’s much better than I’d hoped for._   The tiny part of his mind that he left unchecked crowed with victory. 

            Stepping inside, he sniffed experimentally and brought out a flashlight, casting it around the hall to refresh his memories.  It had taken him months to estimate the abandoned base’s location when he didn’t have anything to judge latitude and longitude by, then months more to find the time to look for it without being discovered.  It had given him a goal, something to hold onto to keep from slipping off the precipice and back into despair, a way to cope with the harsh winter and spring… and in the end it was a good thing. 

            They had a better chance of success if they had a safe place to retreat to.  He suspected it wouldn’t stay safely hidden for long if it was actively sought, and he knew that even now he had little chance of making it to this relative safety with even a quarter of his people… but it was still one more point in their favor. 

            He would take any advantage he could; he’d long since lost any sense of propriety.  Honor hadn’t lasted much longer. 

            Looking at his watch, he decided that for tonight, knowing would have to be enough.  It was time to leave. 

-

***

-

**April 12 th 198 – Thursday – Zheleznogorsk, Russia**

            He watched the group of teenagers with an amused sort of curiosity, laughing and shoving playfully at one another… the girls clustering together ahead of the men periodically and the men just rolling their eyes.  The redhead of the group was as lively as he remembered, wearing what was obviously the coat of one of the men, and she fit in with her friends well. 

            She was just as beautiful as she had been last year. 

            Odin briefly wondered if she had settled enough to have a _regular_ boyfriend, or if this one was just passing through as well.  After a moment’s consideration, he decided it really didn’t matter to him; and that it really hadn’t mattered before, either.  He had known more or less exactly what he was getting into at the time, and despite general society’s disapproval of women like her, he mostly… considered it part of her charm.  It was just a different path, wasn’t it?  And she certainly seemed happy enough with her situation… so why was it that anyone thought they should begrudge others that?  It was hardly their business unless they were in the same situation, and then why would they denounce it? 

            The more he learned about people, the stranger they were. 

            Shaking his head, he focused back on Dasha, debating.  That same breathtaking _vitality_ was still there, the same enjoyment in life purely for the sake of indulgence as she teased and sidled up to the man whose coat she was wearing.  For a moment, he smirked as he debated if she had picked _him_ up while he was entirely minding his own business too.  It was an amusing idea, considering how convinced he had been that fiddling with his little game machine would remove him from anyone’s attention… but Dasha defied the rules around her.  The fact that she had drawn him out in the first place said something about what kind of person the Russian woman was. 

            He’d been vaguely curious to see if he would feel jealous to find her with another man, and relieved that the emotion hadn’t cropped up; as he’d been perfectly aware of how she would move on, experiencing jealousy have been beyond ridiculous of him.  He felt no particular longing either, seeing her again… which was also good, as it would have confused him.  He hadn’t missed her at any point in the past ten months, after all.  There was still something enchanting about her that drew his attention… but he felt no particular urge to make his presence known either.  It might be nice to interact with her again… yet he found he had no interest in pursuing the train of thought, let alone the act itself. 

            He couldn’t help but feel that this was significant somehow, and he didn’t think Marlé could explain this one.  He honestly wasn’t sure he could explain it to himself… but he’d felt the urge to come back to Russia and see, so he had.  The sense of urgency had come from seemingly nowhere, but… well, he hadn’t had any real reason to deny it, so why not? 

            Odin had always told him to follow his heart, his emotions, so as not to regret anything he ever did; to never… gain that same degree of self-reproach his father had always had.  It was far too late for him to escape that, having been stripped of Odin’s code during his training for Operation Meteor, but… he liked to think that the universal forgiveness he had been offered by every family member of those aboard Treize’s shuttle at New Edwards had meant something just as titanic as the deaths of those innocents.  He had reverted back to Odin’s lessons with a harsh tilt then, seeking an honest death to pay back what he had done, but instead of being judged he had… found that his father’s morals could hold far further than he had imagined. 

            He had been trying to find his father’s footsteps again ever since he had woken from his coma in Trowa and Catherine’s circus trailer.  It had been more impossible than he could have imagined, but slowly… life had become more than going through the motions.  He owed that change to a countless number of people, Duo, Relena, Trowa, Sally, Quatre, the Sronas, Marlé, Dasha, any of the people he had tried to make conversation with in his travels… and Noin too, now. 

            He had followed a whim to come here, and he was vaguely amused by the fact.  Both in his wanting to, and in the fact that he had _allowed_ the gratification.  It was such still such a novelty to him, even now that it had ceased to be uncommon.  Some part of his mind wanted to snap that it was frivolous, that there was nothing to gain… but as Marlé would tell him, he was sure, sometimes it not being important was the entire _point_ behind doing something. 

            And now that he was here and had seen Dasha from a distance… he wanted to go south again.  He didn’t even want to wait for the next bus, really, he wanted to just… be back in the Carpathians _now_.  And it was a stronger want than coming here had been, too.  There was… just _something_ … 

 

-

_“Hey, Heero.”_

_He turned at the greeting, curious.  It was a little disconcerting to be called ‘Heero’ again after so long, but he didn’t mind.  “Noin.”_

_She tilted her head slightly as she focused on him, a slight smile on her lips.  It was the same considering gaze as before, one that he had rarely seen her without… and then she quirked one brow and genuinely **smiled** , something he was positive he hadn’t seen in the past – though he was willing to admit that that might have as easily been from a lack of attention as it could of action.  _

_“Are you on a schedule?”  When he frowned at her, her lips briefly quirked again.  “Are you busy?  If you’ve the time, I have something that needs doing that could use your expertise.”_

_He blinked, then felt a smile of his own start to rise.  Something in his chest lifted at the idea of a mission… excitement?  Anticipation?  Not quite the right words, he thought, and Marlé wasn’t there to make him try to sort it out… but the idea felt **good**.  _

_There were a few things he wanted to check on first.  But he wasn’t sure he had felt like this since…_

_He couldn’t remember if he had._

_Her expression had changed, and he blinked again, trying to decipher it… but even as it shifted again, he only caught… a contented kind of amusement?  A sort of questioning air?  Oh._

_“After a couple days.”  He had told Marlé a week; it had only been a third of that._

_She merely nodded and held out a hand, gesturing for him to give her his phone._

-

 

            Turning away from the more crowded areas, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and flipped through the pre-programmed numbers, checking the time.  He’d already taken care of his immediate errands and wasted a …suitable amount of time on a… tangent.  The same part of his mind that growled over his efficiency when he let something slide – the one that sounded remarkably like his superiors during the retraining – supplied the terms ‘wasting valuable time’ and ‘loose end’. 

            He grinned, feeling smug and happy and little flippant.  The words matched the situation, but he liked his better.  It didn’t _matter_ what words he used anymore – he could play with any phrasing that caught his attention.  He felt his grin widen as he hit the connect button.  _I could, **really** , say anything at all…_  And with Noin, that extended into other languages too. 

            _“Hallo?”_ her voice was calm, smooth… like when she talked of security instead of the face she kept for the students, back in Sanc.  Well, the heavy German accent added something else to it, but he didn’t need to follow all the word play and intonations around him all the time, he had decided. 

            …Just mostly. 

            “ _Domo_!” he returned extremely cheerfully, a laugh building in his chest just because he was doing it.  If she was going to use an accent… _Why not?_   Glancing around at the crowd as he headed back towards the bus, he added, in the same level of pure… bounce… “ _Ano_ , you said I should call, when you gave me your number, and be subtle.  Is two days subtle?” 

            He could hear her start to laugh on the other end of her line, and his smile broadened. 

            _“Herr Heero!”_ she returned after a moment with the same overdone cheer, keeping her own accent thick.  _“I wondered if you would ever call!  You’ve not forgotten me after all?”_  

            He bit back his lip to keep from chuckling.  “ _Fukanou desu_!” he protested.  “How could I forget?”  He licked his lips and carried on before his mind caught up and he managed to make himself stutter over a word; there was something bizarrely exhilarating about this.  “I need to see you again!  Let’s meet someplace brighter, though!  I’m in Russia now.” 

            She made an amused sort of noise.  _“I’m in Russia too… but as the country is over fifteen million square kilometers, I doubt that’s helpful.”_  

            “Aa,” Odin admitted, eyes scanning quickly over the crowd, looking for anyone who might be paying too much attention to him.  “Something more specific, then?  I’m near a train station…” 

-

***

-

**Schwerin, Germany**

            Relena smiled broadly at the plant; crouched down as she was, the earthy _green_ smell was even stronger: the smell of _hope_.  “You said this one was how old?” 

            The agronomist seemed just as pleased as she was.  “This section’s one of the newer L4 strains; sprouted about three weeks ago, and we’ll be switching to the summer cycle in another two.  After that point, some days I’d swear you can literally sit and watch them grow!  The average time from the start of summer cycle to harvest is about two weeks.” 

            “That’s amazing,” Relena returned, genuinely awed, and all the more excited because of it.  She had looked up the life cycle of the staple plants they were introducing when the complexes were still under construction, but she had quickly been side-tracked by other issues and hadn’t ever made it back to highlighting the differences in the colony-developed strains – all she’d known was that they matured more quickly. 

            “This and one other strain are the only wheat we’re working with,” her guide went on to explain.  “As you outlined before, the time and space is better put to the potatoes.” 

            She nodded, still staring happily at the plant.  She had gotten familiar enough with everything about potatoes in the past few months, but… she craned her neck to look up the long stalks.  These were so _big_! 

            Movement out of the corner of her eye had her turning her smile on Jake as he walked back to them, jamming his cell phone back in his pocket.  Smirking a little, he noted, “You look like a kid in a toy store.” 

            Entirely undeterred, she stood and brushed off her hands.  “These are _far_ cooler than toys,” she informed him haughtily. 

            Her guide laughed a little.  “Well, I’d have to agree with you, but I wasn’t really expecting someone else to say as much.” 

            “There’s just so many,” Relena returned.  “I mean, I knew the numbers before I came here but… it’s overwhelming.”  She frowned slightly, squinting at the ‘field,’ then stood up on tip-toe.  “I can’t even see over them!” 

            Jake chuckled.  “Well, no one would ever doubt you were raised entirely in cities.  Come on, stop embarrassing yourself before the paparazzi show up to record it for posterity.” 

            “I’m not listening to you,” she announced cheerfully.  “You’re just trying to get me flustered.” 

            “Well damn, you found me out,” her bodyguard confessed in a monotone.  “Bursting your bubble is right up there on my priorities with keeping you amused and safe from assassination.” 

            “I knew it,” the princess returned breezily, the whole of her attention still focused on the rows of wheat.  In her peripheral vision, she could see their guide trying hard to keep from laughing, too, which made her feel good.  He had been a bit distant at first, nervous even, before he realized she was visiting out of curiosity, not to find flaw in his systems. 

            “Well, my nefarious goals aside, we need to get out of here if you don’t want to be late, so if you could stop leering at the poor plants, that would be helpful.” 

            It wasn’t until they were back in their car that Jake pointed out that they were just heading over to another complex anyway and that she could sate herself there that she actually smacked him in the arm, which set him laughing… and really he wouldn’t have said _that_ if there weren’t alone by then anyhow, so she wouldn’t have had to smack him in public. 

            He was thoughtful, that way. 

            “You’ve been spending too much time with Dorothy,” she decided as she settled in for the long drive ahead of them. 

-

***

-

**April 13 th 198 – Friday – Subotiv, Ukraine – Night**

            “I really appreciate this,” Noin muttered as she leaned over and braced one foot against the bench to pull her bootlaces tight.  “It’s a perfect opportunity right now, but not exactly vital, and I already have Hilde and Xutao off on something more critical.  I’d resigned myself to leaving it alone until I had the manpower, even if it would be better defended at that point.” 

            Odin nodded and shifted into a stretch, testing his leg again; he’d already stretched and warmed up, but while it had healed, it could still grow stiff in a short amount of time.  “I wouldn’t have gone to meet with Sally if I wasn’t ready to act,” he returned.  “And my timeline isn’t overly specific.”  _Though…_   Pursing his lips, he ventured, “It seems like a simple enough mission.” 

            “Simple for you and me,” she agreed.  “Just in and out.”  Looking up from her boot, she smiled.  “If Hilde wasn’t afield and raiding at more or less the exact same time, I’d do it myself, but I can’t have her showing up in two places at once.”  Focusing back on finishing her laces, she added, “That would give the game away.  So I either have to wait or I need a proxy… and I know you’re good enough to do it on par or beyond what I could manage.” 

            It took him a moment, but then he remembered the more recent ‘in action’ wanted photos of Hilde that showed on the news, and took in the length of Noin’s hair, her body type… and he grinned.  “How much of what Hilde has taken credit for was actually her?” 

            The ex-OZ instructor let out an amused snort.  “Towards the beginning, most of it.”  She looked up to meet his eyes again and gave him a smug grin.  “For the past two years, though?  Maybe a third.” 

            He chuckled a little himself.  _Clever._   After a certain point everyone _expected_ Hilde, and the two women were physically similar enough that it must have been easy to slide it past with no one suspecting Lucrezia Noin might have something to do with it.  Considering the time gap Noin was admitting alongside Hilde’s increasing skill, it had only looked as though Hilde’s growth was exponential instead of impossible.  It was… a flawless cover, with added bonuses aside, considering how many soldiers had come to outright fear Schbeiker. 

            _What is it Marlé says?_   “Nice.” 

            She cast him an odd look for a moment, then let out an amused sigh.  “I suppose it is.” 

-

***

-

**L2**

            Marie sighed, pushing away from the laptop to look out the window.  She’d woken up with her mother so they could have breakfast together before she went to work, and she’d mostly kept busy either studying German or meandering the net.  The break was nice in some ways, but… it was _weird_ to not have Odin around.  She’d worried that they’d both start to go stir crazy while he’d been in the earlier stages of recovery with his leg and they’d mostly had to stay inside, but they’d spent it like they always had before, with him teaching her – just less physical stuff.  German was the second language she was trying to get at least the basics of down since Christmas – She’d been raised bilingual with Italian, like most L3 citizens, so this would be her fourth total – and they’d gone over more than she thought there was to even _know_ about computers, and a bunch of review over the guidelines for getting your GED that her mom had insisted on… 

            She got where she was coming from, but it wasn’t like she could get her high school diploma under her real name for a few more years at _least_ , so it was kinda dumb.  Unfortunately, her argument that if Marlé Lowe needed a high school diploma on her records before then, Odin could just mock up the certificate and make it legit had fallen flat.  Really, he’d make _her_ do it and call that proof that she deserved to have it, by his estimation… but her mom hadn’t been super impressed with that logic either. 

            In the end of the day, it hadn’t been hard to file for and take the test as Marianna Keissler, and she’d passed without even studying; maybe it had been a little close, but a pass was a pass, so whatever.  _As soon as Odin thinks I can pull it off perfectly, I’m totally making a diploma for Marlé,_ she decided.  Trying not to giggle, she couldn’t help but add, _And one for Odin too, even if he **didn’t** pass._  

            Her mom had insisted on ordering the textbooks for the best GED cram course then, and insisted that Odin ‘include them as part of his running curriculum.’  _It sounds so **boring** when she says it like that._   Because passing wasn’t enough, or something, and she thought Odin might actually _care_ about flunking the stupid subjects when he could totally teach college math and physics. 

            _…I want to go outside._

            Sighing, she grabbed her cell phone and tucked it into her pocket, then her wallet; she’d promised she wouldn’t do anything that might be ‘noticed’ in terms of parkour while Odin was gone, so it wouldn’t be as fun as she liked, but she was starting to catch up a little to Odin when it came to speed…  And she didn’t need a coat up here in the colonies; the warmth was nice, after over half a year on Earth. 

            Grabbing her keys, she went out the front door and locked it.  Maybe she’d find something interesting to do… or at least she supposed she could wander until lunchtime, and go meet up with her mom at the hospital. 

-

***

-

**April 14 th 198 – Saturday – Military Base Outside Smila, Ukraine – Early Morning Hours**

            It felt good to… subvert, again.  He had restricted his actions through computers for so long now that he had initially been worried about updates and shifts in coding, but he hadn’t stopped learning how to dredge up whatever information or access he had wanted; he had simply ceased to act on it.  His speed could use some improvement, as knowing and doing were separate things, but he was still a decent enough percentage ahead of the curve to suffice. 

            He was stalking again, which he also hadn’t done in some time… and not alone, which was new altogether.  It was… euphoric?  _Invigorating._   He had always trusted his own skills, but with the outside support, there was literally _nothing_ that could take him by surprise.  He had done the legwork to make it possible in the first place, but Noin was still sorting through and organizing what data fell into her hands with more ease than he thought he could have, before Zero. 

            He needed to finish teaching Marlé how to stalk – she only knew his halfassed public version that he’d never been able to break from for a normal walk. 

            He heard a soft click next to him, then, _“Door on your right; company coming up from the north.”_  

            Odin slid into the empty room, bringing it back to a soft close just as he began to hear boots in the hall.  Glancing around, he quickly registered that this was a small conference room, nearly bare enough to be sterile; nothing of use.  “Clear,” he muttered under his breath. 

            There was a long pause before Noin agreed in his ear.  _“Clear.”_  

            He stepped swiftly back into the hall, and heard the lock re-engage once he closed the door.  “Fork ahead?” he asked under his breath. 

            _“West.”_

            He made it to the office she had pinpointed without any direct encounters, which was how they had planned, but it was still smoother than he’d expected.  All they were after was information, and that was more valuable when the enemy didn’t realize it had been acquired… but he had never had such a complex, non-contact investigative mission line up so neatly.  There were advantages to be had when your partner had spent years training men in the enemy camp; Noin knew all their protocols, all their shortcuts, and all their possible bad habits which were prevented by security – and any of the ways those rules were gotten around. 

            The breadth of her knowledge left him relieved that the majority of his instructors were confirmed as dead. 

            The contents of the computer copied onto a small drive he’d brought with him, he made his way back through the complex faster than he had come in, more confident now in the system they had rigged together.  Noin had his laptop just within range, with access to all the base’s systems until someone noticed her, which gave her all the camera feeds and alarm and lock systems… though it was impressive, how well she was streamlining it on such a small screen.  Her voice passed directions and warnings through his earpiece and she had feedback through the mic clipped onto his collar, so he hadn’t had to memorize the layout entirely.  The prep for this job had been worked out almost entirely on the drive over. 

            _I would have needed far longer than those forty minutes to be able to do this alone,_ he mused.   _And even then, I probably would have needed to fall back on violence at least once._   She’d described the security as being ‘low,’ but it was shortly after she had begun briefing him that he realized that it she was using _his_ definition of low. 

            He knew he’d liked Noin for a reason. 

            His partner let out a soft curse.  _“Stand.”_   And he could hear why – someone was coming in the opposite direction down the hall, and there was no place to hide.  At this hour there was no chance of them mistaking him for a newly transferred recruit, even with his stolen uniform.  Almost immediately, however, he heard a computerized voice further away announce,  **_“Invalid entry.  Please scan again.”_**  

            He thought it was moronic to have the electronic locks – especially to high security areas – connected to the computer mainframe, but he could appreciate the openings it left him.  Against a less skilled infiltrator, the connectivity was useful, allowing a single guard to maintain a secure base; but if outsiders _could_ get in, it gave them free reign over everything, including the alarms.  No one would be able to tell he had even taken over the computers unless they regularly checked the logs on the office door Noin had unlocked for him. 

            _“Double back and take your first right – stealth takes precedence, they’re on alert now.”_   Knowing she had an eye on it, he did as told, slipping around a corner as he heard Noin make a frustrated noise.  _“They’re asking control what they have on the door scanner.”_  Then, _“They’re heading back to the control room to check a few things through, the graveyard controller didn’t catch anything that matched…  their left is just before your hall.  Stay where you are – they should pass without noticing you… they think the scanner’s probably buggy, but they’re being cautious.”_  

            He tapped his mic once to indicate he heard and understood, focusing on lengthening his breathing and keeping a firm, comfortable stance to avoid shifting and making noise unintentionally.  Dimly, he missed his old mission uniform.  No loose cloth to brush against itself and make noise, or to get caught on anything; no pockets that could hinder movement if filled with a tool, however useful…  But it was far too cold for his old shorts now, and his skin could sear with unexpected pain if some of his worse scars were touched unexpectedly – he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t flinch if it flared intensely enough.  The steady pressure of the leggings he wore under his pants were a must if there was a chance that he might need to be combat ready. 

            He was close enough to hear them breathe, now, though they didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.  They were already convinced it was an error or a button the controller had accidentally hit, so he would have plenty of time to- 

            His calf vibrated. 

            **_“Little less-”_**

            Even as the second millisecond of the song began, he was slingshoting around the corner into two very surprised soldiers, striking with a knife-hand at the first’s throat as he dove into them. 

            **_“-conversation-”_**

            _“ **Tell** me that isn’t your cell phone!”  _

            He kicked the first further into the second even as the man fell, unconscious, and pushed off the wall with one hand to pivot hard in midair and slam his left heel into the second’s face as the back of his head cracked against the floor. 

            **_“-little more action.”_   **

            Regaining his footing, he started off at a run in the direction Noin had suggested before.  “It wasn’t my cell phone,” he lied obediently. 

            _“Then what the hell **was** it?”_ she demanded. 

            “My cell phone.” 

            _“Damnit, soldier!”_

            “You said-” 

            _“South at your next juncture!”_

-

***

-

**L2**

            Marie sighed as another five minutes passed with no answer, looking around the park with lazy eyes.  It seemed so… _manicured_ , compared to the ones she’d wandered through in Europe. 

            _I want to see real, **big** trees again.  _

            She glanced back at her phone; he wasn’t going to answer, was he?  He’d probably left it somewhere, or turned it on silent or something.  He’d had _no_ interest in the thing whatsoever – she’d had to program it for him and everything. 

            Sighing again, she pushed off the wall, checking her watch.  Maybe she’d go buy some lunch.  Her mom was complaining about the cafeteria food before… 

-

***

-

**China**

            Wufei glanced up as he heard the lift power back down, raising a brow at his newly arrived companion.  “Does your father know where you are?” he asked curiously. 

            “Of course,” the girl returned distractedly, focusing on undoing the clasps on her safety harness.  “He told me to go do something useful where you could watch while he sought to guide the feeble-minded.” 

            Wufei snorted, fully understanding Kailì’s frustration with the new batch of technician hopefuls; the majority of them somehow lacked both any mechanical understanding _and_ common sense.  Yu Zi, however – Kailì’s oldest child – was an advertisement for a return to the idea of family practice in a field.  Her learning curve was steep enough that it could probably be classified as intuitive. 

            Then again, if his own father had been a scholar instead of a human fighting machine, with Chang Xiung constantly speaking of chemistry and physics instead of stances and leverage, working through notes and happily explaining how something worked instead of driving his only child into exhaustion through training six or more hours every day, then perhaps Wufei would have appeared to have innate skill in machines, in place of his perfection of martial fluidity.  He had had to work for every scrap of knowledge he gained twice over before he understood anything in the academic arena; his scientific proficiency had only come through sheer determination and refusal to back down…

            …qualities that he supposed his father had gifted him with through the brutal training he began as a toddler.  _Look at anything long enough, and it begins to come full circle._  

            Everything in life was a matter of trades and balances.  Had his father not pushed him so strictly at a young age, he would not have ever gained such skill in fighting.  He would not have then had the time after gaining that mastery to attend advanced schooling, or the discipline to take as much as he could from it.  He would never have discovered the pure bliss of creating an idea he could fuse into reality and use to better the world around him… 

            …And he would never have been selected as a great enough warrior to be worthy of carrying on the Long Clan line through their lone heiress, Long Meilan.  As much as his late wife had infuriated him, she had also made him recognize the things that were important about life – made him regain faith in the idea of faith itself.  She had pulled him out of the apathy he had been drowning in since the death of his father and given him hope for justice in a cruel world. 

            If not for Meilan, he would have become an entirely different man.  If not for Meilan, he would never have fought with all his being for something he thought was right in spite of the odds.  He would never have appreciated how satisfaction could be gained even without ‘winning’ a fight…  That a cause could be worth more than your pride – more than your life, even.  _That living with shame at mistakes is far better than living as a coward who never dared to even try._  

            “I haven’t checked the calibration on those sections yet,” he told Yu Zi, gesturing towards the panels on the opposite side of the receiving plane.  “When you’re finished with those, I’ll show you the assembly on these.”  Currently, he was building up the structure of one of the energy conversion ‘flowers’.  “You’ll need to know every piece perfectly to do repair without supervision, and these will give you less trouble than the older versions; it’s a good place to start.” 

            The girl nodded easily and picked her toolbox back up before padding over to the panels, and Wufei couldn’t help but shake his head a little.  Yu Zi gave him _so_ much less trouble now that she was apprenticing under her father – and virtually him too, considering how often the man pushed her off on him to deal with his less competent ducklings.  And while that might have annoyed him at three months ago, he considered it a favor now; after all, if he had had to cope with an assistant from the rest of the batch, he would likely be facing murder charges.  Yu Zi, with her calm efficiency, was a soothing shadow of noise nearby; he could trust her to not make mistakes.  Under any other circumstances, allowing someone else to play with _his_ creations – at least, while he was still in the same room – would have been nerve-wracking.  It had been hard to even allow Howard’s team of experts repair Nataku when he was aboard _Peacemillion_ , even when he knew they could likely do a better job than he could himself. 

            With an easy breath, he focused back on what he was doing, relaxing more as Yu Zi settled into her usual rhythm.  Somehow, inner peace was getting easier and easier to find these days.

-

***

-

**Fifteen Minutes Outside Smila, Ukraine City Limits**

            Looking back, it still went far better than he had expected.  Apparently the controller had either fallen back asleep or assumed that the two soldiers had been distracted… or that they were only trying to get a rise out of him in the first place.  It wasn’t as clean of a job as they had been aiming for, but taking down a few enemy soldiers had been within their parameters for error – he’d blundered, but he’d also taken care of the problem.  Noin was annoyed at him, but…  Well, he’d be pretty annoyed if she had made that kind of mistake.  It was embarrassing that he’d forgotten something so simple.  

            It wasn’t until they pulled off on a side road and stepped out to switch the license plate and take the colored decal-wrap off the car, changing its color from black back to a metallic green, that he decided to apologize.  When she just rolled her eyes, he admitted, “I’ve never had a phone before.” 

            She gave him a look.  “No?  And how long have you had this one?” 

            “Five days.” 

            She studied his face for a moment, looking skeptical, before sighing.  “Only you, Heero.”  Shaking her head, she moved to get back in the car.  “You handled it, and you came out fine.”  She laughed.  “Shit, more than fine, you handled it _beautifully_ , even, but…”  Snorting slightly, she slid back into the driver’s seat.  “I’m checking your damn phone _for_ you before a mission from now on.” 

            He grimaced a little as he got back in himself, but didn’t protest; he’d only given her the right.  “Not an entirely bad idea,” he agreed.  He was fairly sure he wouldn’t forget again after _this_ , but he had no habits for a phone, and therefore no guarantee. 

            They passed maybe ten minutes in silence before Noin asked, “How have you never had a phone?” 

            He shrugged.  “My father always said they were a liability.”  He paused.  “I think I agree with him.”

            She let out another of those soft chuckles.  “You would.  So who was it, anyway?  I didn’t see you silence it, so it was a little short for a ringtone.  You got yourself a girlfriend texting you at all hours?” 

            He gave her a look for a moment, wondering if she was serious, which made her chuckle again… and shook his head in a negative before reaching down into the pocket on his calf to pull the little machine out and unlock it.  “No.”  _I suppose I have Marlé to thank for whatever song that was instead of a simple beep or chime._   “A text,” he agreed with Noin, hitting the button to open the message… and closing his eyes, suddenly feeling just… very tired. 

            _‘i’m bored’_

            His companion raised one eyebrow, lips twitching.  “No good?” 

            He reached up a hand to cover his face, even more embarrassed than before.  “No good,” he agreed. 

-

***

-

**April 17 th 198 – Thursday – Lille, France**

            “It’s frustrating,” Dorothy muttered as she added cream to her coffee, taking care to hold her free hand up in an elegant gesture – as she normally did – with convenient enough placement that it would largely block any view of her lips.  “Either a significantly large proportion of the noble population have had personality transplants for unknown reasons, or I am missing something important.” 

            Relena frowned.  “What do you mean?” 

            The Romefeller heiress rolled her eyes and gestured an elaborate… annoyance.  “Only a bare handful are following my projections.”  Catching Relena’s skeptical look, she narrowed her eyes.  “It is not simply _me_ , Lena.  I know these people; I know their entire extended families, their nervous habits and pleasures.  Those facts are not wrong, and very few of them have shifted even slightly.  It is their responses to my advances that do not match the situation.” 

            The princess picked up her tea and sipped, considering.  Technically speaking, Dorothy hadn’t worked for her or Milliardo since October, when she had formally come into her own as the new head of Romefeller  – which was far older and technically had more power and sway than the Regime could ever hope, despite Milliardo’s semi-successful attempts to castrate it.  Truthfully, Dorothy hadn’t worked for _Milliardo_ since the February before last, when she had sworn over her absolute allegiance to Relena. 

            So while Dorothy had presumably begun to mend her network of contacts and assets last month, bringing Romefeller as a whole into power again, she had only begun to do so because her friend had asked her to profile the powerful as ally candidates.  Dorothy could get very far and dig deep into the layers of a shockingly wide array of individuals without anyone even blinking; she had, after all, been brought up to fill exactly the role she was playing now.  She was inherently manipulative enough, an actress of great enough skill, that she could sound them out without them realizing what she was after.  The fact that the noblewoman was eccentric as a mad scientist – only reborn with the interests of a ruthless socialite – also helped.  It took a great deal of prodding before someone even vaguely familiar with her antics – and her priorities, good _lord_ – might suspect foul play. 

            Relena had to give the other woman credit where it was due, though; anyone who could exude such confidence, perfectly intimidating and masterfully controlling her opponents when she had neon green highlights through her platinum hair _must_ have innate talent.  Somehow, with her ridiculous designer clothes and royal carriage, Dorothy made green hair look downright glamorous. 

            And however odd or pitiful sounding the excuse about how it was something about the subjects that was wrong instead of her predictions concerning her Romefeller contacts, the heiress _was_ a talented strategist.  She had the emotional maturity of a middle-schooler and the patience of a five-year-old, but she was still a prodigy, a _genius_ , in her own right – if she considered it a strong enough possibility to bring it up like this, than there was little doubt that she was exactly right. 

            _But what could the missing factors be?_   Again, Dorothy was the tactician.  If she hadn’t found the clue to click the pieces together yet, then the only help Relena could hope to offer were observations that had a chance of sparking a flash of insight in the other woman’s mind.  Her own talents laid elsewhere. 

            She glanced to the side as she caught movement in her peripheral vision to find Jake walking back towards them… then stop as his phone rang and he offered her an annoyed look before answering and walking back out onto the terrace again. 

            Relena shook her head as if to clear it, focusing back on the subject at hand.  “Do you have any ideas for what it might be, at least?” 

            Dorothy, however, was frowning after Jake.  “What is he up to?” 

            “Trying to network a favor for me,” Relena dismissed.  “I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer, I promise.” 

            The heiress’ eyes narrowed.  “Is this the same favor as when he couldn’t detach himself from his computer for just five minutes a week ago?” 

            “It’s a big favor, with a great deal of moving parts,” Relena returned dryly.  “I’m letting him cook it up and flesh it out as much as he can before we go over the details.”  She tapped one finger on her napkin.  “Right now I need _your_ details, Thea.  Do you have any theories?” 

            The other woman was clearly annoyed, but she let the subject drop.  Wrinkling her nose briefly, she admitted, “My first thought is more related to allegiances… none of them are terribly impressed with Milliardo, and by all appearances, I obeyed your brother’s every command for two and a half years.” 

            Relena smiled into her cup as she took another sip of her tea.  “They must not have spies inside the Regime, then.”  Dorothy’s ability to _not_ do her work and somehow skate by and keep her position in any case was practically legendary by the time Relena had returned to Brussels, let alone the amount of pure bullshit she’d done in the nine months before quitting. 

            Dorothy giggled slightly at that before moving on.  “In any case, I come across as a fence-sitter, which was true enough three years ago, and then I largely hid from my extended family and connections until now so as to avoid your brother believing I had the sway to actively use them.”  She met her eyes serenely as she lifted her coffee cup.  “I’m an unknown quantity and will have to earn the trust of the majority through the good old-fashioned means of money and favors… but I believed I had already accounted for that.”  She focused back out the window, finishing with, “It has to do with trust, I believe, but I haven’t yet had any luck unearthing what is tangling the network… and I’m afraid that it is likely more than a single factor.  The range of reactions is too wide, the complications too severe.” 

            _Wonderful._   More mystery was the last thing they needed at this point; the unknown was her worst enemy.  “Alright… how about any progress on the other front?” 

-

***

-

**L2**

            Marie jumped as her phone went off and grinned, scrambling to figure out where it was underneath the papers she’d let pile up on her desk.  _Finally_ , a text from Odin, probably saying when his flight was coming in.  He hadn’t ever answered her last week, which had made her seriously start to wonder if he’d dropped it at the bottom of his bag and forgotten about it… 

            _‘I’m going to be another week or so.’_  

            She scowled, flipping open the keypad and typing furiously back, _‘keep your stupid phone on!’_  

            A minute or so later, she got a reply.  _‘I did.’_  

            She rolled her eyes, but grinned.  Odin was… well, _Odin_.  _‘did you like your ringtones?’_  

            _‘I’m keeping it on vibrate from now on.’_  

            Marlé groaned.  It figured, it really did, but seriously, what did a little variety hurt?  _‘you’re boring.  what’s going to take you another /week/?’_  

            There was a longer break before her phone went off again.  _‘Checking on a few things I hadn’t planned on… doing a few favors for old friends.  I’ll tell you about it when I get back.’_  

            She sighed.  Of course he would; these were non-contract, disposable phones that couldn’t really be tracked to them, but that still wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about over open communications.  It had been kinda silly to ask at all. 

            _‘you /can/ call sometime,’_ she complained.  _‘i miss you’_  

            There was another long break before he answered.  _‘Spend time with your mother; you might not see her again for a while, traveling back and forth too many times will be a bad idea.  I’ll be back soon.’_  

            _Typical Odin…_   She blinked when it went off again, then snickered. 

            _‘Find something more interesting to do than texting me when you’re bored.  Be creative.  Surprise me.’_  

            Oh, she’d find something to mess with him with, just for that… 

-

***

-

**April 19 th 198 – Saturday – L4**

            A woman with wild auburn curls and a blanket-wrapped infant tucked in her arms, standing next to a tall man with a thin but deeply muscular build and brown hair, both smiling, the man with his arms wrapped around a two-year-old girl he was holding up by her armpits. 

            A young toddler hugging a teddy bear and gnawing on one ear gazed directly out of the next picture, bright green eyes curious. 

            Adam frowned slightly, looking back to the first picture.  The little girl was obviously Cathy, with her mother’s bushy hair that had a bit more of her father’s brown.  The woman was wearing what looked like an acrobat’s leotard under her jeans and unbuttoned jacket. 

            …Her eyes were almost exactly the same shade of green as his.  Focusing back on the baby, he considered it again.  The toddler’s were a brighter green, but he had always been told that children’s eyes often changed color as they aged. 

            _Not that practically anyone looks anything like their baby pictures anyway,_ he reminded himself, finding his eyes drawn back to the man in the first photo… because that was really what had caught his interest in the first place. 

            He looked… astonishingly like Adam himself did.  Catherine had gotten her slate blue eyes from him, but the structure of his face, the way his shoulders set, his height and even the way his smile twisted were eerily close to what he saw when he looked in a mirror.  He had long told himself that Catherine was simply sentimental and the idea that they might _actually_ be related was like something out of a girlish romance story, but… seeing his own facial structure under the toddler’s baby fat had him deciding that as implausible of an idea as it was, it might hold some merit. 

            Standing up, he went back into the bathroom and rested his hands on the counter, leaning forward to examine the specifics of his face.  He wasn’t anything exceptional; he had the kind of face you could immediately lose in a crowd, but… he _looked_ like Cathy’s father.  And when he’d buzzed off all his hair before, it had grown back in with a reddish sort of tint that became less obvious the longer it got to be again.  It was a darker shade overall too now, and again, he’d heard people say that children and teenagers often had their hair color change as they grew older, usually becoming darker as you entered your twenties… and even grown out again now, it had some auburn in it.  Hell, it even had a few coppery glints here and there…  He stared at himself another moment, then looked back down to the picture of the Bloom family that he’d brought in with him. 

            _It’s… **plausible**._   He was about the right age, as far as he could tell…  Though if this was really him, then he was two and a half years younger than Cathy… eighteen at the end of June.  He’d assumed that he was a little older than that, but it wasn’t as though he’d ever had anything to gauge it by.  He remembered thinking that other kids were annoying, but he’d also grown up with _mercenaries_ , in a setting that had no other children and he had been held responsible the same as the other adults, so he had never had any reason to think like someone his own age.  He could remember a blonde girl with dark eyes when he tried to think of someone he’d seen as an equal that wasn’t over the age of twenty-eight, but it got fuzzy, beyond that…  He resented her, but couldn’t remember _why_. 

            Not that it really mattered; she seemed important somehow, but he was sure it was only so to the past, and the past wasn’t worth much thought. 

            This though… it was the past, sure, but Cathy meant it still _applied_. 

            Shrugging after a long moment, he switched off the light and turned to put the pictures back where Catherine kept them.  She was probably right, he was willing to that admit now. 

            …But he wasn’t going to answer to Triton anymore than he did Nanashi. 

            It was Adam, now.  And now – now and what came after – was what mattered. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ritafore Hospital**

            “Hey, you.” 

            Doushovel van Rhinn’s eyes lit up as he saw his old friend, and he grinned as he caught the bag of hard candy thrown at him.  “Hey to you too, Gust!”  He squinted at the thick and sloppy handwriting that labeled the plastic bag before exclaiming excitedly again and opening the thing.  “Who made these?” 

            “Tiede and Laura,” Gust explained, reaching into the bag to steal one himself before moving to sit down in the chair next to the hospital bed.  “Marien had-” 

            “Oh no,” Shov argued, pushing back his blanket and tentatively swinging his legs around.  He tried not to do anything fast, because that made his head spin and he’d crumple, but he was _not_ stuck in a bed anymore.  Besides, he had to get used to moving around on his own and be at least somewhat practiced before they’d let him go home. 

            But he _was_ going to go home. 

            “I’ve been in this bed so long my ass is permanently numb,” he argued as he slipped his feet into the slipper things the hospital had given him and lurched the rest of the way to his feet.  His left leg was still damn weak, but it didn’t immediately buckle anymore. 

            Gust rolled his eyes but stood up straight, and was good enough to not be so insulting as to offer his arm before – _if_ – Shov asked for it.  “Where are we walking, then?” 

            “Somewhere outside this room,” the other man groused, testing his weight against his bad leg and deciding he was good.  It was really his head that he needed to be ready to have work against him… but he was _finally_ getting there.  “What were you saying about Marien?” 

            Gust hesitated slightly as though remembering something he should have considered first, then ploughed on anyway.  “Since everything started looking up again and we’re okay for food even if prices skyrocket, Marien insisted on using some of the old preserves to make pies for everyone on Karina’s birthday, and then Tiede said we could make candy out of the syrup stuff the fruit was canned with.  Someone else made berry flavored stuff too, but the peach was what I found already packaged up.” 

            “Makes sense.”  _So why the flinch?_   He thought about it for a moment as he popped a peach candy into his mouth.  _Ooh these are **good**._   What could he be skimming over that he didn’t want to touch on?  Obviously there was nothing bad about pie or candy or birthdays or- 

            He blinked.  “Sin finally admitted when her birthday was?”  For as long as they’d known her, she’d refused to let them know her age, her birthday, or even her real name to the point that it had been something of a running joke between him and Luc – though at least she’d given in about the name thing when Luc asked her to marry him – and…  _Oh God._  

            _Luc._

            He grabbed Gust’s shoulder and hung on, leaning most of his weight as his head spun and everything swayed.  _Luc._   Luc was dead.  He’d died in December, but somehow, it just…  how could Luc be _dead_? 

            How could the riot have been four months ago?  How could he have… how could _anyone_ sleep so long and still survive? 

            Some weird twist of chance had gotten Relena to take a shine to Katrien, and the princess had been there to see Kat start to break down when she heard about Luc dead and him soon following.  So Peacecraft – no, _Darlian_ -Peacecraft – had pulled out all the stops on getting him top quality care and making sure he made it through.  He’d been comatose for something like three months, and then in and out after that, and rehab fucking _sucked_...  But it had all been muscular rehab, not mental, at least.  And he’d been so focused on that after he started to wake up that all the changes outside the hospital care that the princess was still covering for him just seemed… surreal. 

            Winter’d gone by a lot calmer than everyone had worried. 

            Kay and Melissa had gotten Father Espen to marry them in February. 

            Nolan and Amos had started high school.

            Laura and Dev had gotten their diplomas, finally. 

            Jamus had talked everyone into letting his girlfriend – fiancée now – move into the Den. 

            Leah was dead. 

            Luc was dead. 

            … _Luc’s dead._   He didn’t want to start crying like a ninny in the damn hall, he really didn’t… 

            Gust held onto him tightly and just weathered it through, which Shov appreciated more than he could say, and he tried to grip his hand back to let him know.  He, Gust, and Luc had been friends since, like… kindergarten.  They’d stood together and held firm when everything went to shit, even when they all felt like complete failures for not being able to stop Melissa from doing what she did to keep Nolan safe and fed…  And she and Kay were so _good_ for each other, he was glad they’d sealed the deal, but… 

            But _Luc_ … 

            After a while, Gust started talking again, trying to distract him… which was probably a good idea, so he tried to listen even if he doubted it would catch his interest.  “So yeah, Rina’s birthday was the seventeenth.”  He jostled Shov’s shoulder a little.  “We finally have all her little secrets now, so do you remember what our bets were?” 

            Shov closed his eyes and laughed a little, though it was weak.  “Not really.  Luc made us call them all off when he got serious about her, remember?” 

            “Ah, yeah, right.  I was thinking it was weird that I couldn’t remember the numbers.”  He gestured to ask if he wanted to try walking again, and Shov regained his footing and nodded, though they kept their pace slow.  “So we all knew she had to be younger than what she generally claimed, you know?  And you remember Luc eventually saying that she acted old enough and essentially _was_ old enough that he was done worrying about it?” 

            It was… easier to think of him like this, maybe; though he was starting to get wary of how long Gust was taking to get to the point.  “Yeah?”  _I’m not  going to like this, am I?_   “We were closer than we liked?” 

            Gust snorted and shook his head.  “She turned _seventeen_ two days ago.” 

            Oh.  Oh _ow_.  He squeezed his eyes shut again, fighting the urge to sway.  _Turning seventeen **now**?_   That was a few dozen steps _beyond_ jailbait.  “Seventeen?  Gust, that means she was _fourteen_ when she and Luc started-” 

            “Yeah,” his friend returned shortly, sounding incredibly resigned himself.  “Yeah.” 

            “…In his defense, none of us _ever_ guessed that low,” Shov offered after a moment. 

            “She sure as hell didn’t _look_ it,” Gust agreed with a mumble.  “But shit, I’m carding the next pretty girl I meet.” 

            His laughter was a little more real this time.  “Yeah…  Yeah me too, I think…” 

-

***

-

**April 20 th 198 – Sunday – Brussels, Belgium – Afternoon**

            “Jake?” 

            He twisted his head around without lifting it from his pillow.  “Mm?” 

            Relena smiled a little.  He was as adorable as a little kid with his hair sticking in every direction… something it did every time he laid down to sleep.  She just hadn’t noticed for the first six months or more that they’d been friends because for the most part, he hadn’t allowed her close enough to see him immediately after he’d woken.  He was so perfectly casual yet utterly closeted about his privacy. 

            And really, it was that open mask and carefully protected secrecy that defined Colonel Jake Miller. 

            “How do you have so much influence?” she asked carefully, if bluntly.  She had put off asking in the hopes that he’d explain himself eventually or make it obvious to her, as he often did, but she had seen no sign of it thus far…  And he had made it clear that she _could_ ask him about anything she cared to in the past few months.  With how their relationship had changed, the worst he could say was that he preferred not to answer.  She had asked a great many things, and he had yet to refuse… though she had also skimmed away from topics she knew he might find difficult.  She only took what he willingly brought up on his own about his family, or his time with OZ. 

            After the riot in December he’d begun to sometimes stare off into nothing with a sad and hopeful look… and it felt so intensely private each time that she hadn’t wanted to ask. 

            “Mm…”  Jake turned a bit more to look at her directly, then rolled so he was laying across the couch on his stomach with his head propped on his hands, elbows on the pillow now.  “Hard to say; and it’s not exactly your kind of influence either, or I’d have had this done already.” 

            He pursed his lips, thinking, and Relena resisted the urge to reach over and straighten his bird’s nest of hair.  They’d only had to shave a tiny area to relieve the hemorrhage from when the stage light had hit him in Amsterdam, and he’d managed his vanity mostly by letting the rest of it grow out more and having layers put in everywhere… and she personally thought the shaggier style suited him better.  With the extra length, too, you should see how each strand was distinctly three or more shades of blonde even when it was neatly combed – rather casually chameleon. 

            _Very_ Jake. 

            “Probably…”  He considered for a moment before nodding.  “This is the longest I’ve ever lived in one place in my life.  My uncle was constantly moving and we never really put down roots, but… we made connections all the time.”  He looked thoughtful for another long moment.  “That’s actually one of the things I think drove Jack crazy about him, and then about me, because I was already set that way when he took me.  No solid roots like most people think of, but either I already knew a few people everywhere I was bound to go, or I knew how to make the kinds of friends I needed to get what I wanted.  It got to be… not even habit, but it’s just always what I’ve done, for as long as I can remember.  I always keep in touch with everyone I know to some degree, so it’s never completely out of the blue if I reach back to pull a string or two.  And I have _enough_ friends that-” 

            “None of them ever feels strained for it,” Relena finished for him.  That… made sense, especially considering the sheer _amount_ of correspondence he’d been keeping for the past two weeks, which was dire compared to a movie star’s social life, let alone her friend’s intensely private one. 

            The fact that he’d been putting himself through that kind of wringer for her made her want to glow. 

            He grinned.  “Exactly.”  Sighing and rolling back onto his back, he added, “Though I’ll be more than happy to go back to my normal routines again.” 

            She smiled.  “Of course.  How close are you to having it figured out?” 

            “Almost there,” he admitted with a yawn, crossing one arm over his eyes.  “I’m mostly sure on the best place for us to go, it’s fitting and symbolic, even, but I want to make sure the last few things are ironed out, if you’ll humor me.” 

            The princess shrugged, feeling a little excited just in anticipation.  She had no doubt that her friend would deliver… and she knew exactly how good it could feel to hold out a perfectly finished product of something you’d worked hard on.  She certainly wasn’t going to begrudge him a little pride if he wanted to indulge.  “I trust you,” she answered simply, before grinning and tossing an eraser at his head, intentionally having it miss entirely but make him jump slightly and twist to give her one of his sleepy one-eyed glares.  “I’ll let you go back to your nap now,” she promised with all the impish innocence she could muster.  “I’m sated.” 

            He snorted and rolled his eyes… and flopped back onto the couch in such a purposefully graceless motion that she couldn’t help but giggle.  _Some days…_

 _Well, no,_ she corrected herself, grinning wider and turning back to her computer.  **_All_** _days, now._  

-

***

-

**April 22 nd 198 – Tuesday – Treize’s hidden compound**

            Treize Aaron Khushrenada, deceased General of the dissolved Order of the Zodiac of the disbanded Earth-Sphere Alliance, Heir of Romefeller, and ex-King of the World – an entity which had been far more literally broken up – finally gave in against all his upbringing and years of determination.  He dropped his head onto his splayed hands and growled.  It might have even qualified as a scream, had his timbre of voice been less of a deep tenor. 

            It didn’t help as much as Váli had always insisted it would, but repeating himself did, somewhat. 

            Dorothy was attempting to revive the Romefeller network.  _His_ network – or at least, the portion he trusted enough to reveal the fact that he was still alive to, because he could still reliably manipulate or righteously demand their loyalty.  Zechs had secured the basics of Romefeller in name and barebones theft when he created his Peacecraft Regime after the fall of _Libra_ on Christmas 195, but while his control was minimal, it had been enough for him to accomplish what he found necessary.  His ability to intimidate them had gained him the rest of the cooperation he wanted afterwards – or even some true allies as they saw the winds of change – though they would have done so with severe distaste…  But a great deal of his success in had involved the Romefeller heiress that had, at the time, shadowed his every step. 

            During and immediately following the events at _Libra_ , no one had been sure if it was she who pulled his strings, or if it were the other way around; if Duke Dermail’s spoiled granddaughter was the final proof of the past century’s rumors of Catalonia mental instability, or if the Sanc prince was holding her hostage.  If he _was_ , whether it was stereotypical or just leverage and manipulation, making her believe she had no other way.  Dorothy still _was_ , in all too many ways, a child, and those in Romefeller knew it well, had been accommodating for it since she had reached puberty… which only made her footing more unsure.  So long as there was doubt concerning the exact situation and her allegiances – and they all knew the guile Dorothy could lie and manipulate with at the age of _seven_ , let alone seventeen – no action would be taken that could directly harm her.  Consequently, her skill as an actress alongside her peculiarities painted such an unpredictable canvas that _that_ circle had kept her protected from all sides. 

            Treize was positive that Dorothy had purposefully made herself a hostage without letting Milliardo realize the implications in order to gain that protection to buy time.  The oddities were merely another sign of the genius he knew she possessed… which in turn strengthened her cover and gave her more breathing space.  She knew Romefeller would not dare lose her unless it was clear that they already had, so she had crafted her layers of camouflage from all directions… and occupied her time largely by making a nuisance of herself. 

            That was hardly new – she had been doing more or less that since her father’s death anyway.  The only difference under the Regime was that Romefeller had fought to keep her antics under wraps for the sake of reputation.  As far as most of Romefeller was concerned it was fitting that, having conquered them, Zechs now had to take a turn dealing with her. 

            The real surprise, in Treize’s opinion, was that the prince appeared to have handled it with far more aplomb than Dermail had… which was frankly a feat in an of itself.  Personally, he’d always found the girl’s antics hilarious, and the fact that she got away with it had only made it more amusing… but he had rarely been allowed into the deeper circles Dorothy was privy to, once he came to lead OZ. 

            In any case, his cousin was a viable Romefeller Heiress from one of the first families of Romefeller.  If _she_ had been the one to drop _Libra_ , she would have been put under house arrest and protected, as they had him after he obliterated the Alliance military.  Conversely, everyone with power in the Foundation would happily skin then burn Milliardo alive, despite his heritage as the firstborn of Katrina Weridge.  They had been happy to try to use a naïve Relena before, but that had only been considered as an option at all because the Weridges had allowed one of their daughters to marry into the Peacecraft line and gain a stronger foothold in Sanc.  Had Sanc not become a nation of extremists and therefore taken off the map in 182, the prince and princess would undoubtedly have been brought into the fold. 

            Katrina Weridge-Peacecraft’s death had, after all, been unfortunate collateral damage; Romefeller had intended to bring her and her children home after killing the father so they could be ‘raised properly’, but by the time anyone realized the three of them weren’t tucked away in the panic room Katrina was dead and the trails were long cold on both Milliardo and Relena.  It had been viewed as unfortunate, but while popular, the Weridges had not held great power within the Foundation in many years, either.  Instead of causing an uproar, the fall of Sanc had merely put the final nail in the coffin of the Weridge legacy. 

            _To think that once upon a time, the Romefeller Foundation was meant to stop wars._   At least, that was what the history books claimed.  A group of friends joined together in purpose, then nations united in peace after too many wars wrought havoc throughout the world.  Yet after a few generations, the cycle found a new way to repeat, until it became a concern of ‘protect ourselves’ instead of ‘protect the world’ and lines were drawn again… both in conflict, then on the maps in recompense when the latest fighting was done with. 

            _Oppression, revolution, peace… then oppression again.  A three step dance through history._  

            Then the rise of greater technologies than ever before had given birth to space stations and resource satellites, and finally the colonies themselves, reason to write a whole new calendar era... and at first, it seemed as though perhaps mankind had outgrown the need to war.  Nearly every country had labored feverishly on their own unique spin of technology, striving to make a new mark on history – to preserve their legacies, and instead of fighting or scheming, for once they were simply competing.  In space, they wouldn’t be limited to their own land, or land that they could steal from their neighbors – you didn’t need to have neighbors at all.  As the mining rigs developed further, the race for raw resources began to disappear… 

            …and then the very first colonies to go up, courtesy of China, were launched as a show of power, so they could permanently exile a few ‘problem elements’.  _New people, new technology, literally making a brand new world… and the endless waltz of human nature continues._  

            New problems had occurred with the colonies as well as old ones, naturally.  He understood that Chang Wufei was descended from those exiles of those first viable colonies.  It hadn’t been the first _attempted_ colony, by far…  but it was the first with survivable failsafes built in, with enough quality engineering to be self-sustainable and safe for long-term human habitation.  The Winner Corporation colonies – the next to go up – had had shielding problems, and the high mortality rates in pregnancy and childbirth haunted the Corp’s founding families to this day; evidence of poor testing, as the problems had never become so severe elsewhere.  There were reasons you shouldn’t try to rush the prototype and testing stages of anything.  _But then, so often that is simply the price of pioneering._   The Chinese hadn’t cared if their exiled clans suffered, so long as they could claim it wasn’t directly their fault… and it was debatable if the first colonies had really been so well made, or if the exiles had instead risen to the challenge and solved their problems on their own. 

            Considering the things he had seen come out the A0 cluster series – Shenlong and its pilot only one powerful result of many – he suspected the latter.  _Though if that is true, I believe I understand why their government chose to expel them to the furthest reaches of the universe rather than risk a coup._   It had been one of _those_ colonies that had allied with Dekim, and an ancient A0 colonies that the original Operation Meteor had planned to drop.  To be fair, the thing had probably been about to rip apart in vacuum at any time by then, and they had long been either viciously treated or neglected to the point of literally being forgotten…  But Operation Meteor had more or less proved that there _had_ been a reason behind the exile of those clans. 

            Sighing slightly, he leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, considering how much sway Dorothy… no, how much sway _Relena_ could hold within Romefeller.  Dorothy was now Heiress, valuable and to be protected at minimum for the sake of sharing her great mind with future generations.  After all, her father had been nearly as brilliant, though thankfully more socially acceptable.  It had been down on the books somewhere since 193 that, despite being in a more direct line of succession as Demetri Catalonia’s child while Treize was a nephew, Dorothy was _not_ to be given control of the Foundation unless she matured drastically or there were literally no other options. 

            Romefeller had stood strong for over one hundred fifty years now by directly following Catalonia lead, only now that the family had come so close to snuffing itself out, they were at a loss.  General Demetri Catalonia had only grudgingly married late and fathered a child when cornered on the subject decades later than his peers were comfortable with… and then hadn’t bothered his young wife again after Dorothy’s birth, considering his duty done.  By the time Demetri died and left OZ to him, Treize was openly acknowledged as Heir despite bearing his father’s _also_ nearly extinct Khushrenada name. 

            It had been amusing, to spin that back against Romefeller and force them to their knees after the fall of the Alliance.  The nobility that had silently puppeteered the supposed democracy of the Earth Sphere for _centuries_ could do nothing but silently gnash their teeth in the face of his insurrection because they _still agreed_ that Dorothy would make a terrible leader.  They didn’t trust him, but he had been all that they had to work with. 

            His long game – after Dekim had been dealt with and he had his reunion with the love of his life – had included them learning he had sired a child with a Barton daughter.  For all that that had never crossed his mind until years later, marrying Leia would give him even better footing against his peers; the Bartons were, after all, originally a Romefeller branch themselves, cut off over time and distance after their expansion into L3.  Bringing a seat of power back to Earth that still had such strong colonial influence could, from their perspective, only lead to good things.  Unfortunately, with his ‘death’ that only meant Dekim’s game with Mariemaia had faced far less resistance than ideal, when the old man made another bid for power in the post-Fall economy.  _And now, with Dorothy reaching out…_  

            On the plus side, his younger cousin’s fence-sitting these past three years reinforced the idea that he should be the one to lead next, at least to those in the know – and while he disliked using his lover and daughter for blatant political moves without asking permission first, he couldn’t afford to turn down such a boon…  

            …and he couldn’t allow himself brood on Mariemaia’s situation any longer either.  _Whoever has her is keeping her healthy and safe – that **has** to be enough, for now._   He couldn’t help a smirk, however weak.  _And the infamy can only help **all** our lives, in the long run._  

            So, if he stopped considering the personal angle…  Relena was the far more likely threat.  Yet, knowing Relena, if she did rise to power she wouldn’t be stupid enough to think she could run all aspects of a world and colony-wide government.  The fighting that led to the war with the gundams had taken that lesson home, at least.  She _understood_ how permanently entrenched Romefeller was, and therefore also knew that trying to rip it out by the roots at this point would be both senseless and impossible.  Her short tenure as Queen of the World and everything more recently had taught her to twist a few arms and use something like that to her own advantage instead of trying to eradicate it and start over. 

            Looking back to the report he had gotten from yet _another_ contact’s meeting with Catalonia, he let loose a more thoughtful mumble that his mother wouldn’t have scolded him for.  Somehow, in the end, everything in the modern world wove its way around and _through_ Romefeller… which made sense, but that made working with the old fools no less difficult.  Traditions of old – brought in from different remade areas of the world as new governments toppled the old then became old themselves – were melded into something that could at times be incomprehensible.  Traditions had a way of becoming as good as law, and even more set in stone – stone only rivaled by an individual member’s pure stubbornness to get his or her own way.  It was at this point an _ancient_ ruling party… one he had been trying to flout and bypass with minimal success since reaching puberty. 

            The Romefeller Foundation had originally been an alliance between the larger, more powerful monarchies in an attempt to regain some sense of democracy… and, as the first colonies were going up and hostilities were again on the rise, to ensure that relations didn’t explode out of their hands.  Energy weapons were born alongside the colonies, after all, and the potential to wipe out entire nations overnight… very suddenly, it had moved from ‘possible, with a great deal of effort’ to ‘easily’.  If you wanted to be egalitarian about it, the Foundation was composed only of nobles back then because they would have been the only ones with any power or influence at all. 

            By the time the calendar was changed to After Colony, everyone in a position of power had acknowledged that democracy was a grand lie; or at least, its current incarnation was.  The people went through the motions, hawking and electing their favorites… but only those from the right families rose to power – or in the event of a true dark horse, the unaffiliated were never able to accomplish unique goals.  The support of the nobility was _critical_ for change. 

            If you wanted to take a more cynical view, however, they had all been arrogant, proud bastards who believed they could both take over and save the world – that they could be renowned as heroes.  Either way, they had accomplished exactly what they had wanted.  Over the years, they had accepted a few more countries and their controlling powers entrance, usually paired with marriage, achieving greater power and influence… before beginning the slide into the deep corruption the system had been terribly infected with by the time his grandfather was born. 

            Power corrupted, naturally, and absolute corrupted absolutely…  and that was one of the reasons why he had always tried to focus on the simple pleasures in life more than the grand scheme politics.  Human nature was deceptive, and while need was at the core of any man, defining it from _want_ …  _Is it any wonder mankind is so often led astray?_   He had promised himself at a young age that he would never allow himself to fall into that tempting… degradation. 

            Desire of power for goals was one thing; but desiring purely for the sake of power was a firm road to hell.  Good intentions might get him there anyway, but at least it was a winding path, not a direct, neatly paved one. 

            Romefeller had taken more of a back seat and begun to subtly pull strings instead of leading from the front when the newer wave colonies went up and the Earth-Sphere United Alliance was born… and after that, it was as though people forgot how much power they still held. 

            He couldn’t think of a way to unravel the secrets of Dorothy Catalonia without placing himself – and therefore all his men and everything they were working for – at great risk.  His cousin might make a perfect ally… but he also knew _exactly_ how ruthless she could be if it pleased her. 

            All he could say for certain was that she _had_ a goal in mind with this latest game of hers, something specific – possibly hugely complex, but also possibly simple.  Dorothy’s mind had forever been too much of a labyrinth to reliably predict, but she had been pointedly doing nothing to go in any direction for the past three years, and suddenly now she was not only moving, but with her old aggression. 

            _If Dorothy has the ultimate set of poker masks, the next closest bet are the people she relies on: namely, Relena._   And Relena, for better or worse, had also acquired the ability to craft masks. 

            So the key to Dorothy was Relena, and the key to Relena was still up in the air… but she could likely do even _more_ damage to him and his goals if she decided to not ally.  He needed to get enough information on her to know if an approach was safe… and he had been trying to get that for over a year now, with nothing solid. 

            Relena had learned enough to play on the safe side for once. 

            He let out another tiny sigh.  It _was_ a good thing she had learned to curb her impulses, but it really wasn’t helping him at the moment. 

            Picking up a fresh piece of paper, he made a note to put more pressure on finding Relena’s opinions and allegiances when it came to her brother and what her plans for the future were, particularly in concern to Sally Po’s rebels.  That subject _could_ be broached or hinted to, while as a dead man, bringing him up might just cause suspicion… especially if Dorothy was already wary. 

            They were beginning to lose time. 

-

***

-

**April 25 th 198 – Friday – Brussels, Belgium – Early morning hours**

            Colonel David Mitchell sighed a little, rubbing at his eyes before focusing on the reports in front of him again.  At this point, they’d started to blur together.  He had never liked paperwork, always preferring to be _doing_ something; he’d been beyond ecstatic to get the position leading the Strike Force.  He’d enjoyed training his men up to a high standard since receiving his commission, and the first few major targets were both obvious and imperative. 

            Unfortunately, he’d gotten so caught up on the overreaching goals and the training that some part of him had managed to forget that full research and planning would be required once that was out of the way… and then he had forgotten how long it could take to properly research something on his own.  He was too used to getting Jake to either do or at least help with those steps. 

            Miller would just cackle if he heard that thought, and while David agreed that it _was_ a little funny, it was still altogether sad. 

            So… practice, he supposed. 

            He really wanted to move on the Cambyses, spread across most of northern Africa, but he didn’t have all the recon he wanted yet; and he was going to need a _lot_ more manpower than was just in his squad, so once he _did_ get the information he needed, there would be the time taken to negotiate more troops.  Then the fighting itself was going to be… messy at best.  Ideally, his men should be damn prepared, seasoned and experienced, before he took them into an utter shit storm like that was bound to be. 

            The founders of the freaking _cult_ had apparently gone on about how only the strong deserved to survive in the new world.  Their growth method of kidnapping young men, brainwashing them, and forcing them to fight gave them the leading edge on sheer violence.  There was a decent chance of turncoats helping them when they got in close to actually fight, considering how vicious the initiation process was and how miserably the recruits were forced to live, and that was _something_ , but not something he could count on for planning purposes. 

            Dealing with Cambyses was going to be a bloodbath, no matter what way it was gone about.  They had ruled out bombing due to the hidden nature of many of their compounds mixed with the fucking _cages_ they kept their most recent victims in, and the apparently common practice of bringing back innocents to… do with what they would… 

            …He wanted more than anything to take them off the map tomorrow, they twisted his stomach around so bad, but he knew better than to go unprepared.  They were basically a desert nation of Vikings.  Apparently it hadn’t been quite so parasitic of a group to start with, but it hadn’t taken too long before the later idealists of the system decided that if they could kill off their vaguely intelligent superiors, as they were both stronger and destined for power and greatness… and they had no real idea of how to manage a group of people. 

            Thank God though, really.  If they were truly well organized, well-disciplined, they wouldn’t have any choice _but_ to bomb the entire area repeatedly. 

            Beyond Cambyses, though, there were a slew of lower priority cases that also required more research that may or may not be easy to conduct… and he considered the said stack in that priority listing with a jaundiced eye.  He couldn’t make up his mind if any needed any particular sort of priority over the others, but at the same time he was convinced that there _was_ something more important than the rest in the stack in there, and he really needed to make sure not to miss it…  But then that could just be old paranoia creeping up. 

            _Still…_

            It was something of a relief when his cell phone rang, though he frowned when he looked back at the time.  It was awfully late for anyone to be making a social call, and he wasn’t expecting anything from his men tonight; they were on a much needed break between the minor jobs he’d already started to get their feet wet.  Well, _they_ were on break while he figured out what the hell they were doing next… 

            _Aa._   The caller ID read ‘Jake.’  Hitting the connect, he noted, “My job is being annoying.” 

            His friend let out an amused snort.  _“My job is sleeping, currently… but she’s generally not annoying in any case.  I should crash too, but, I need to ask a favor.”_  

            David shook his head a little; there were definitely far worse people to work with than Relena, to be sure.  “What kind of favor?”  He’d just agreed without asking in the past, and while that was fine when his friend was serious, it had landed him in some uncomfortable bullshit when he was in a more whimsical mood.  Calling at three in the morning when he knew the man absolutely loathed being sleep-deprived probably meant he wasn’t just fucking with him, but he’d learned his lesson. 

            The other Colonel made an amused noise.  _“Don’t worry, it’s nothing squirrely.”_  

            David sat back, rubbing his eyes.  “Alright, let’s hear it.” 

            _“Can you knock all trouble in Munich to the top of your priority list?”_

            He blinked, ran the last few lines of conversation back through his head a few times to be sure, and grinned.  _Wasn’t I **just** thinking something about how Jake ought to come along and do this part for me?  Problem solved._   “You… just made my day.” 

            _“This past day, or today?  …Er, tomorrow?”_

            He laughed, shuffling through the stack of papers for the ones he’d clipped together for areas in Germany.  “Shit, let’s just go with both.” 

            Jake snorted again at that.  _“You miss me making you work your ass off.  I knew it.”_  

            “Things get overly complicated when you’re the only one giving much in the way of orders,” Mitchell protested.  “I want to have a life too, but apparently it’s just not meant to be.  Instead I have to lose sleep over stupid decisions you’d make with a moment’s thought.  I can’t figure out which part is more important to do first anymore, I swear to God, and it’s probably the sleep deprivation doing it…” 

            His friend made an annoyed sort of noise at that.  _“Honestly, Dave, sometimes?  Just flip a damn coin.”_  

            “Flip a coin?” 

            _“Yeah, but don’t let you men see you do it, it’s bad for morale.”_

            He grinned a little at that, then turned tiredly back to the stack of papers, now that he had the Germany sheaf out in his hand.  “I’ll need a fifty-sided coin,” he announced.  “Can you get me one of those?” 

            Jake started laughing in earnest, and it really _was_ suddenly a better day…  a better week, even. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Any favorite interactions, or anything you didn’t like? Not that I’ll change it, mind, but that is how one grows as an author… and if it’s something I honestly overlooked instead of a conscious decision, I might go back and mend it, and account for something better… Keep in mind that some characters, such as Noin (or others as they crop back up), are being written after a massive time skip where they have gone through a lot of emotional turmoil as a bare minimum… and that, more than anything, can be a scope for reshaping a person. That kind of shift was kinda the whole point and theme for every single character in Survival, so yeah. That theme is still recurring here… just that there’s more of a real plot and goal in mind now; they’re not just developing, unlike in Survival. 
> 
> Hence the Series name being Recast Steel.


	3. Progression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone reevaluates their opinions, even as they scheme, intentionally or otherwise - the one static of the universe is that everything is always changing. As one door closes, another opens - there's always someone waiting to capitalize on your latest mistake, but often times, change is for the best.  
> \--  
> Relena and Noin expand their influence, Duo's too badass to bother, and Odin's too busy improvising to realize the rules might be changing. In the meantime, Mitchell is scheming successfully and everyone is dealing with surprises - some better than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I had to scrap and redesign the placement and geography of the next several chapters in the Sahara Desert again. I’m honestly confused about how I could have bungled that so badly repeatedly… but at least it should be good now? Otherwise, just grammatical stuff. If you take issue with my possibly terrible Italian and French, please feel free to contact me – it’s been a long while since I conjugated anything in the romantics, and I was never fluent enough to really have a grasp on imperative tense anyway.

**_-_ **

**_ Progression _ **

**_\--_ **

_ Because no matter what people say, at the end of the day life is a magnitude, not a vector. _

_**\--**_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**April 26 th 198 – Saturday – L2**

            Odin couldn’t help but feel content as he slid the key into the lock and felt the pins smoothly slide into place, allowing the cylinder to turn… he’d never had keys to anything before Leia had given him one for her condo.  She had told him that it was his home as long as he wanted to stay… and that as long as it was his home, it was his key. 

            It wasn’t as though the Sronas hadn’t considered him welcome in the same way; he had simply always been with one of them, literally something of an invalid so it would have been a useless measure.  But Leia had pointedly pressed keys into both his and Marlé’s hands at the same time shortly after they had arrived back in L2, her expression serious… and it had meant something more than Samuel and Moira Srona’s open-armed welcome.  Moira tried to… for lack of a better word, ‘mother’ them; Leia had taken a close, considering look at them before nodding, then took a step back to allow them to define the boundaries even as she welcomed them in. 

            Leia Barton confused him maybe forty percent of the time, but he genuinely liked her.  She was frank and sincere, but despite that, she didn’t have his rough edges.  She was swift and sure of herself, yet calm and quiet, perceptive – content to wait in the shadows until those around her realized they had gotten lost in themselves and felt embarrassed by her arch look.  He was positive she did that last on purpose, but despite being ready for it, he still couldn’t decipher how she made herself slip from his attention in the first place.  Or if not the slipping away – he could do that and had been told he had a rather unique presence himself – he wanted the secret to how she made it seem as though she had done absolutely nothing to give the impression.  People jumped or scowled when it was him – they felt foolish or guilty with her. 

            He wasn’t going to ask Marlé’s opinion until he had it mostly worked out.  She might laugh, even if she would also agree in a heartbeat. 

            The deadbolt slid back and he quietly opened the door, stepping inside and shutting it behind him, glancing around to see if they had heard him yet… only to blink as a pale ball of fur launched itself onto his foot. 

            He stared blankly at the kitten for a moment, seriously contemplating if it was possible that the neighbor had changed their locks and by miraculous coincidence matched Leia’s – that he had, in fact, walked into the wrong house. 

            The creature turned proportionally enormous blue eyes up at him and started to rumble like a motor as it clawed contentedly at his shoelaces. 

            _No, the furniture is right._

            “You can’t claim creativity when you’ve been talking about kittens for over six months,” he announced after a moment, sighing as he set down his duffel and knelt to consider the animal.  It mewed happily at him as it continued to file its claws on his shoes, then again in pleasure when he reached out to scratch it behind the ears, anchoring its claws in his shoe and leaning into his hand as far as was physically possible, somehow purring even louder. 

            He smiled, rubbing at its head a bit more vigorously.  _Alright._   He _could_ see the appeal, but still. 

            “Isn’t he beautiful?” Leia cooed as she came into the living room, smiling brightly and coming to crouch next to him and scratch the cat on the other side of his neck.  “Marie saw him, and then I thought that, well, maybe I could use a little company while you two are off gallivanting about.  He was the most affectionate out of the bunch, as well as the prettiest.”  Her smile widened as she reached out and spread the little cat’s toes to make him retract his claws enough for her to pick him up, and she tossed Odin a mischievous look.  “I’ll have you know that _I_ always wanted a cat too.” 

            Marie snickered from where she was standing over by the entry to the kitchen, and Odin gave her an amused look.  Maybe her original claim last September had some validity, and all girls _did_ love cats. 

            “We were just about to make dinner,” Leia added as she snuggled her pet against her neck, rubbing at him with the line of her jaw so that he rubbed her back as hard as he could with the crown of his head.  “There’s enough for all three of us, I’ll just have to get a few more things out.”  Again, her eyes lit up in an amused way as she turned and handed the kitten back to him, moving his hands so that he was holding him the same way, that purr vibrating steadily against his jugular.  “I’ll cook – you take Heero.” 

            He blinked, that not making any sense at all, until Marie giggled again and noted, “It only has _one_ e in it… but we named him Hero.” 

            Odin closed his eyes and fought the urge to sigh, focusing on the warmth on his neck as Hero purred more and rubbed its head against his jaw line.  _Of **course** they had named it something like that._  

            Leia laughed delightedly as she moved away.  “Well, if any of your old friends ends up around here and slips up on the name, it makes a good cover, doesn’t it?” 

            He did sigh as the little creature started to nuzzle more at his jugular instead, running the sides of his mouth over Odin’s neck and leaving faint traceries of wet that dried almost as soon as they went down… and cried again.  Well, no, not exactly a cry, and he kept doing it…  it was almost as if he was trying to just idly chatter; making noise for the pleasure of it.  After a moment he pulled his cupped hands away to hold him up at eye level and really consider him. 

            He was mostly a creamy white, with nose, the tips of his ears, paws, and tail fading darker into a pale gold… and he still rumbled like a badly muffled engine.  After a moment, he mewled again in a satisfied way and reached out a paw to try and touch his face.  Odin let him, wondering slightly at the feel of the soft pads on his nose, then the other paw on his forehead… before, stretched out as far as he could go to accomplish it, Hero ducked his head down between his forepaws so his head was maybe an inch from Odin’s eye and let out another happy sort of meow.  His eyes were not just content now, but showed that the cat was incredibly pleased with himself. 

            He laughed and gathered the little thing back into his hands before tucking him up against his shoulder… and smirked when Hero simply clambered the rest of the way on and anchored himself with his claws before crowing out another meow at his achievement.  _You’ll fit right in here,_ he decided as he went to pick up his bag. 

-

***

-

**April 27 th 198 – Sunday – Munich, Germany**

            “Just a sec,” Nan called as he shut a few windows – more out of habit than anything – and patted his pockets – mostly to be sure they were there.  He’d had the _most_ embarrassing time once when he hadn’t thought to _check_ before answering the door, and it had been his landlady, with him only in his shirt and boxers…  The damn woman had been convinced he’d done it on purpose too, as if he _needed_ her to make his life harder. 

            He went over everything from the past week in his head, just making sure…  yeah, he was good for all his deadlines, both legitimate and not.  _Besides, BJ would have called or messaged, not come knocking._   Well, unless he was bringing beer and pizza, which was _always_ appreciated. 

            _I need to sleep… and shower…_   Food wasn’t an entirely bad idea either, but on Sundays he usually went over to Lindsay’s and they did the big group thing.  And Lindsay could _cook_ even better than he could con anyone, and really, the guy had been born to be a con artist more than a rebel.  _Thank God for small mercies._   He liked having the guy on his side of a fight… and this side of his wallet too. 

            _I’m not late on rent or anything, am I?_   He couldn’t think of anyone who’d actually be at his door this time on a Sunday… gah, it _was_ probably his landlady.  Seeing as yes, he _was_ dressed, he ran a hand through his hair – not that it would matter to the damn woman – undid the lock… and blanched at the man in military black leaning against the frame. 

            “Nan Hoffman?” he drawled, dark eyes glinting with the kind of lazy indulgence a cat might offer a cornered mouse. 

            _Oh shit._   There was someone else down the walk too.  _Oh shit, I’m **fucked**._   “Yes.”  The word came out as a bit more of a whimper than he’d like to admit to. 

            “May I come in?”  Not waiting for a response, he strolled in and shut the door behind himself before again leaning against it.  In a slightly more serious tone, he noted, “We need to talk.” 

            Nan desperately wished he’d actually listened when BJ had explained how to identify rank from the uniform.  “What about?” he tried, utterly failing to be nonchalant. 

            “Mm.  I understand you and your friends-”  _Oh shit!_  “-don’t have much love for the genocidal leader I play fetch for.”  The soldier’s eyes were, suddenly, painfully honest.  “Don’t try to deny anything, just listen.  You have a good little discreet operation here; I wouldn’t have had anything to work off of to realize there was even a _chance_ of a rebel cell here if I hadn’t been caught in a jammer net of yours last summer.”  He rolled his eyes.  “But even knowing you were up to something then, even which _hours_ , I can’t get any idea of _what_ you did that day.  I can appreciate how much work and coordination that takes.” 

            He shook his head a little, tossing a few black curls of hair out of his face.  “I’ve had my reasons for playing along with Marquise and staying in his good graces, but it’s always been with the thought that it was only until someone better, someone _suitable_ came along.  So when Miss Darlian-Peacecraft tells her bodyguard, my best friend, that she’s sick of dealing with her brother and she wants to move to Munich…”  He gave Nan a long, considering look.  “I’m a fan of consolidating available resources instead of squandering them.” 

            _That…_   Nan felt his knees start to buckle, and managed to sit on the floor before he fell.  His mind was whirling a mile a minute.  He’d thought this was a bust, but then…  well, who _would_ want to work for Marquise?  But _Relena_ Peacecraft was another story entirely; brother and sister were frickin’ black and white. 

            A bubble seemed to pop in his throat, and he fought off a gasp.  The princess wanted to move _here_?  Holy _shit_ , he wouldn’t’ve ever _dreamed_ - 

            “I see you’ll need some time to process it,” the soldier noted dryly, his smirk back in place.  “In the meantime, I’ll be visiting your friends…  And as this is an equal opportunity between you all, I’ll be having Sergeant Thorly visit with you a while to keep you from letting the cat out of the bag before I’m finished.”  Waving slightly, he stepped back out his door as smoothly as he’d entered, and the man that had been down the walk came in a moment later with a curious look. 

            Nan offered him a weak smile.  _Holy **shit** …_ 

-

***

-

**Salzburg, Austria**

            “Well then,” Noin muttered dryly.  “You’re both all in one piece; that’s a plus.” 

            Hilde grimaced at that, and could see Xu doing the same in her peripheral vision.  It had taken a _lot_ more prep than they’d anticipated to get through the security, and then they’d more or less botched it – she still thought it was Xu’s fault, but respected the fact that that was probably wildly inaccurate and unfair of her – then had to spend a _week_ on the run before heading back to a base of operations, because there had to be _no_ chance whatsoever of a base being discovered… 

            And then the General was calmly waiting for them when they _did_ report in.  She’d told them to be fast too, she’d something else she needed done, something about an information raid… the kind that they’d actually just blown to all hell, actually. 

            Inwardly, Hilde groaned again.  _She’s **never** going to trust us again._   And while she realized that that, too, was an exaggeration, her mentor would certainly make sure it _felt_ like an eternity. 

            _All the same though…_   “Is there any chance we aren’t too late to do that other job you mentioned?”  Xu was giving her one of his disbelieving _looks_ now, and she rolled her eyes slightly at him.  Seriously, if you never went out on a limb, you lost a lot of opportunity. 

            Noin let out an amused little noise.  “I never intended to send you in on that; I just couldn’t appear somewhere at the same time as you,” the woman noted.  “So yes, you’re far too late… but I caught up with an old friend and he helped me take care of it.” 

            “Old friend?”  Xutao tried to discreetly elbow her, and she openly stomped on his foot in return; he bit back a squawk.  If _he_ wanted to keep all his propriety, that was his business; _she_ had no intention of falling victim to that bullshit. 

            Besides, the General was obviously amused by the byplay, her eyes shining.  “Yes, he was a bit of a surprise; I hadn’t seen him in over two years.”  She shifted her focus to Xu.  “Though, Chang here had a chat with him last July.” 

            Xu froze, and Hilde was at a loss for a moment, trying to remember what was happening almost a year ago with her partner.  He’d been mostly AWOL, and then-  She gasped.  “ _Heero_?” 

            Noin looked even more amused.  “You should’ve seen everyone else’s reactions to him.  I think the Commander was constantly caught between stopping herself from gushing, or pulling him into a hug every time he smiled.  I caught a few of our boys trying to hide from him, too.” 

            “He _smiled_?” Hilde demanded, her mind spinning.  _Heero…_   “He’s really okay?”  _I need to tell Duo._   But there was no chance of her discreetly getting out to visit Duo for _months_ , and that wasn’t the sort of thing she could send a message about even if she _could_ send a message to Duo, seeing as she couldn’t let anyone know where he was.  _Don’t tell anyone but one of the other pilots, he said…_  

            Except that the General’s tense implied that he’d _been_ there, not that he currently _was_. 

            Noin was watching her and she knew it… and Lucrezia probably _knew_ that she knew, but she’d respected the charade enough to not look into it so far… 

            And she wanted to know if there was any news about Quatre or Trowa too. 

            “Has he heard from any of the others?” she asked hopefully.  “From Duo?” 

            There was something implied in the other woman’s smile, or in the shaded parts of her eyes, that said she _knew_ that Hilde knew where Duo was but was humoring her, as she shook her head.  “He was hoping we would know more,” she explained.  “The last time he saw Quatre was over fifteen months ago, and the closest he came to finding any of the others was when he thought he was chasing down Wufei instead of _our_ Chang here.”  Focusing back on Xu, she added, “And don’t think that I don’t see that as a blessing, Xu; I respect that the two of you were friends at some point, but Wufei’s an ass that I don’t look forward to working with again.  And I believe I’m fully correct when I say that it was you who kept this last run salvageable, instead of finishing it with casualties.” 

            She reached over and grasped his hand firmly in hers and made sure he met her eyes before giving him one of her true, bright smiles.  “From what intel we did get about what happened and after, you were damned _brilliant_.”  Tapping Hilde on the head with her other hand like she might an annoying puppy for emphasis, she added,  “You’re the one who got you both out and safely home free.  The two of you are worth more than any intel I could ever send you on; so _thank-you_ , Chang Xutao.” 

            Hilde blinked and tried to make herself smaller as Xu seemed taken aback by the praise.  “I… I was just…”  He shook his head.  “I did what I could with what I had at the time.” 

            “And it was exactly the right course,” Noin praised again.  “”Though from what I understand, what you did you learned from your ‘Adam’ friend, who also has your information as a way to contact us… and it would be nice to meet him too, sometime.” 

            The Chinese youth shifted a little uncomfortably.  “I have no idea if he will, ma’am.  He’s… eccentric and used to working by himself; I got the impression that even working with just me was a novelty.” 

            The General’s smile was genuine.  “Well let’s hope he decides it was _good_ novelty.  After all, Yuy didn’t contact us for a solid ten months after you ran into him.  We’re finally culminating into something bigger.”  She winked at them, looking a bit more predatory.  “We’ve been a bit more showy lately… and I think we’ll be kicking it up another notch soon.” 

            The backhand seemed to come out of nowhere, but Hilde knew enough to move with it as much as she could without falling over.  “Get some sugar in your system and meet me down in the gym; we’ve got work to do,” Noin ordered, her tone dripping with annoyance.  “I actually got to _see_ the tape where you fucked up, so we’re going to make sure you never do it again.”  Smiling softly at Xu, she added, “You’re free for the rest of the day.” 

            Hilde ducked around the other woman and down the hall before Noin could ask her why she wasn’t moving yet, wanting to grumble but knowing better.  If the General caught her bitching she’d be working herself into collapsing asleep on the gym floor kind of exhaustion for the next _three_ weeks instead of one… and, well, she was right.  She _had_ fucked up… and really did deserve it.  It just sucked that it had been her instead of Xu this time. 

            And… well, if it had been her and not Xu, then she probably ought to be working her ass off to make sure it _was_ him next time. 

-

***

-

**May 1 st 198 – Thursday – Brussels, Belgium**

            _It would be all too easy to grow to hate Mary Jean Sabetta,_ she reminded herself.  _You’re above that._  

            Relena forced her fingers to loosen before she could bend the folder she held – thankfully it was thick enough to have not done so already.  “I see,” she returned calmly, letting some small amount of irritation show, but not the heavy weight in her chest.  “Did he say when he might be available again?” 

            _Sabetta is merely his favorite proxy.  Hating her would only be a hopeless attempt at hiding my resentment with Milliardo._   She didn’t want to think about how long it would be before that resentment could build finish building into a true loathing for her brother.  Incidents like this made it worse, where he wouldn’t even allow her close enough to personally shunt her away and instead assigned it to one of his aides, but… 

            She couldn’t simply _give up_ any more than she could let herself hate Sabetta.  She owed it to him- no, she didn’t owe her brother _anything_ anymore, but she owed it to _herself_ to not fall into his same hypocrisy. 

            “No, Ma’am, I’m afraid he didn’t.”  She eyed the folder the princess was holding.  “Would you like me to take that for him?” 

            “No, thank-you.”  _He can see it when he cares enough to look.  I hide **nothing** , but that doesn’t mean he’ll see anything either._  She turned to walk away.  “Please tell him I came by.”  If he remembered to care, _he_ could come ask _her_ about the preparations for the Chinese teams arriving in five weeks.  It was the only one of her projects that she was obligated to keep him posted on, as the agreement to trade with the Chinese for the heat amplifiers had been made with the Regime, before she became a candidate for the Rhea Lowe Tomorrow Today Fund. 

            She didn’t protest as Jake came up like a shadow and pulled the folder from her again tightening fingers; she’d asked him to wait just out of sight.  “Ass,” he mumbled just loud enough to hear. 

            “Don’t say that where you might be heard and understood,” she sighed out.  Not that being face to face with her brother had ever stopped her bodyguard from calling him the same, but…  _But what?_   Her hands started to fist and again she forced them back open before most people might notice the gesture.  _I feel like a damned moody teenager over this.  Furious at him one moment, defending him the next…_   She understood, for the most part, why she was having this war within herself, but she was ready to finish it already and be done with the emotional upheaval. 

            It was exhausting, never mind the pure confusion and stupidity of it all. 

            Jake snorted, and instead said another phrase in what she was fairly sure was in Chinese…  And if it wasn’t Chinese for ‘ass’ then she had no doubt that it was far more offensive. 

            “Do I agree with that?” she asked tiredly. 

            “Yes.” 

            She smiled as she looked over at him before shaking her head.  On days like this, Jake was the only thing that kept her from sinking back into the flailing depression she’d dug out for herself before returning to Brussels.  “He has a talent for making me feel as small and insignificant as a seven-year-old,” she murmured without moving her lips.  “Even without being there to do it himself.” 

            Her friend nodded in agreement… as he said something else in Chinese.  A true grin made its way across her face.  “You know, you could be saying _anything_ , as far as I know.” 

            He widened his eyes in a mock attempt at innocence.  “But you agree with me,” he protested, bumping her shoulder lightly with his as they continued to walk.  “Though,” he admitted a moment later, “I’m actually far from fluent in Mandarin.” 

            “That’s news,” she returned, surprised… and then amused that she was actually surprised that he didn’t speak every common language.  _Wow, Lena,_ she chided herself.  “How much _do_ you know?”  She fought back a smile. 

            “Enough for basic business transactions and at least twenty creative ways to cuss someone out,” he returned cheerfully. 

            She chuckled a little at that.  “You _would_.” 

            “I learned most of it from a cadet that thought I was a…”  He trailed off, trying to remember.  “bastard of a goat freak of nature.”  He frowned.  “There was something else in there, but I really don’t remember.  I was, like… eleven and making him work his ass off.”  He started to snicker.  “I eventually looked into it just because Dave would start _giggling_ every time the guy addressed me as something like ‘goat-fucker’.” 

            She fought down a giggle of her own, just _seeing_ it… and a faintly amused eleven-year-old Jake cheerfully returning something of his own in Chinese at some point…  _Oh God._   She was going to have to ask Mitchell about that one the next time they saw him.  “What did you do?” 

            “I asked him what he had against goats.” 

            She outright guffawed at that… then did a slightly better job of containing herself as he gave more details while they made their way up through the compound and back to her suite of rooms. 

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert**

            Razo met Robby’s eyes briefly when he turned to face them, and he saw the flash of genuine concern before the man focused on Cory.  As soon as Razo let go of the kid’s shoulder, the boy _launched_ himself at their leader.  Robby’s glimmer of surprise lasted only a moment before his mouth settled into a grim line and he caught Cory against his chest, closing his eyes as the kid started to shake.  Razo could feel himself starting to tremble too, now that he was relaxing enough for it to show, back on safe territory… 

            It had been one _fucked up_ day.  He’d never seen Cory cry, but he was fighting off sobs now as Robby just held him. 

            The woman’s eyes flashed through his mind again before he pushed it back, trying to not hear the shrieking, but that was harder to get rid of… 

            …and it was time to throw up. 

            He didn’t bother with discretion; just knelt, braced his arms and lost his stomach.  It wasn’t like it would be hard to shovel it up and throw in the latrine later… sand was sand was _fucking_ sand, after all. 

            Cory was _losing_ it.  Cory was probably the most stoic of any of them, but the kid was breaking down…  Razo’s stomach wrenched again.  _Fuck, not that I blame him…_   But seeing Cory lose his ability to dissociate from it all?  Well, he hadn’t been able to help but lose his cool too. 

            When he decided he could look up again, he could see that Robby’d sat down and pulled Cory down into his lap, pressing his favorite’s face against his shoulder.  Their leader was watching him, though… and something about that sad but steady, cool gaze helped his stomach calm down; made him just tired, instead of wanting to scream and sob.  He could start to think rationally again… at least, rationally enough to know he wanted to get up and sit by his friend and hide his face in his knees. 

            He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that on Robby’s little keep away corner of camp.  He didn’t really notice the passage of time at all, until it started to get dark. 

            _Cory?_   Lifting his head, he looked to the side, knowing he would have heard if they moved, but still…  Cory was calmer, but still not normal, clinging to Robby like a lifeline.

            _Hell, no ‘like’ to it._   Robby _was_ their lifeline in all too many ways…  Though more for Cory than the rest of them, he guessed, because Cory was what kept Robby grounded most days. 

            He was finally starting to feel better when the boy whispered, _“Sembrava mamma.”_  

            “Shh,” Robby murmured, running a hand gently though his hair.  _“Lei non è qui.  Dimenticalo.”_  

            _“Dimenticalo,”_ Razo agreed, the word feeling foreign in his mouth even as he understood.  _Dimenticare._   It was one of the ones that didn’t quite translate across to French, but he’d had to take a year of foreign language to pass his gen eds back in uni… and he’d have figured it out just from context anyway. 

            He hadn’t realized Robby spoke Italian as well as English and Arabic…  _But I hadn’t realized Cory did either._  

            _“Oubliez ça,”_ he agreed.  It felt truer, somehow, to say it in his own damn language for once.  English was the common one they all fell back on here, with how many refugees Cambyses had swallowed whole.  “Better just to forget.”  Determined to follow the advice, he studiously blanked his own mind;.  Maybe someday he’d get therapy, but for now, repression worked too well to ignore. 

            He only just kept himself from jumping when Robby dropped his head to the side, onto Razo’s shoulder.  _“Ce ne sera qu’un peu plus long maintenant,”_ he muttered, sounding exhausted.  _“Je promets que ce ne sera qu’un peu plus longtemps…”_  

            _Only a little longer…_  How long had they all been thinking that?  The use of French startled him on some level… but at the same time, he couldn’t make himself care about how multilingual Robby was.  He trusted him… because he really _was_ going to free them. 

            And it _would_ be soon. 

            “I believe you,” he returned, taking the naked trust the younger man was showing, being this weak and vulnerable, to heart.  “Only a little longer.” 

-

***

-

**May 2 nd 198 – Friday – Brussels, Belgium**

            Dorothy smiled to herself as Jerome let her into the room, focusing on Jake sitting on the couch with an array of files around him.  Relena preferred to use the table, but sometimes, Jake seemed to have something against more permanent furniture. 

            She frowned.  _Well, no, couches are less movable than tables._   After another moment, she nodded to herself.  Jake seemed to dislike furniture that wasn’t as _universal_ ; as though he’d been balancing his laptop on one knee while spreading papers over a hotel bed for so many years that doing anything else was too foreign.  So, while Relena would sometimes use up the whole of the long table in her suite, scurrying around it to different piles of organization to visualize and keep her ducks in a row, her bodyguard covered the couch and coffee table instead. 

            _I suppose it keeps them from mixing up each other’s work._  

            Jake saw her and gestured a sort of hello that meant he’d get to her in a moment before continuing to talk on the phone, and Dorothy focused at the table – only two neat stacks of manila folders, suggesting the princess had finished for the day – before looking to the clock.  It was unlikely that her friend was in bed already, though possible… so she was likely showering.  Curious, she opened up the top folders on each pile.  _Mm._   The shorter was the constant reviewing and survey Relena had running on the hydroponics, and the considerably thicker stack looked like it was the preparation for the amplifier survey.  Picking up a few folders and opening one lower down, she nodded to herself in satisfaction; this was a similar set of objectives for a different town near the fields. 

            _It’s a shame Milliardo refuses to acknowledge her._   Her princess could be so obsessively thorough.  _She’s going to be a **much** better ruler._   Now if only the stoically beautiful man in power would step down or let his sister do more than nibble at the edges… 

            The heiress paused as Jake said his goodbyes to whoever was on the phone.  She hadn’t really paid attention to what he’d been saying – that was the polite thing to do when someone in the same room was on the phone – but…  “Are you speaking _Swahili_?” she asked incredulously. 

            “Of course not, it was complete Gibberish, spoken only by the official African People’s Republic of Gibberish,” the blonde colonel retorted as he stood and stretched.  Tilting his head at her, he added, “Doesn’t the fact that you _recognized_ the language say something?  You’re a Romefeller Heir.” 

            Dorothy frowned.  He had a point, but- “Everyone who doesn’t speak English can speak French,” she argued. 

            He snorted as he walked over to her and play smacked at her hands before neatening Relena’s stack of folders.  “Spoken like a true imperialist.  I lived at the Academy in Tanzania for almost three years, remember?  If you don’t know the language the locals prefer, they can swindle you twice as easily.” 

            She eyed him warily for a moment, trying to decide if he’d said it on purpose… then started giggling when he winked.  _Swindling in Swahili, really!_   “You’re fluent in Swahili but not Chinese?” 

            “Did I just claim to have _ever_ lived in China?” he protested.  “I’m part Japanese anyway, they _hate_ me!” 

            She giggled harder at that, because not only was it bad, but it was probably _true_ despite how very _little_ Asian blood her friend had.  “Well, don’t _tell_ them.” 

            “I’m not an idiot,” he returned petulantly, which made her keep giggling, before grinning genuinely himself and shaking his head.  “Not that I mind or anything, but were you just here for company or did you have a reason?” 

            “Oh!”  She hadn’t actually forgotten, but it was more fun to act as though she had.  “I bought a townhouse!” 

            Well, she’d had an old Romefeller house based in Munich transferred to her direct control, but it was all the same, really. 

-

***

-

**May 5 th 198 – Monday – L1**

            Odin smiled as he watched Marlé make a beeline for the specialized electronics store in the little strip mall, deciding to leave her to it; she was having just about as much fun finding what _wouldn’t_ work for what she wanted as she was with what would.  He was more than happy to let her hash out the experimental stages for now – she was learning far more than if he’d tried to show her – that was half the point of telling her to find something interesting to do. 

            She hadn’t _just_ gotten the kitten for something to ‘surprise him’ with, thankfully. 

            None of the signs in particular drew his attention, but he wanted Marlé to work without him standing over her shoulder, pressuring or influencing her, so wandered into the neighboring shop, which had… clothes.  Inwardly he sighed, but began to walk the racks anyway.  He had no reason whatsoever to come in here; he didn’t need anything, but he’d gathered that this was what most people did when killing time… 

            He frowned.  _And now that I think about it, Marie’s almost grown out of her coat._   Glancing over at the coat selection on the other side of the store, the ex-pilot wondered idly if all these places were carefully molded traps for the unwary spender.  If so, they had it down to an art. 

            His theory was only further proven, really, when after discarding a few options he remembered why he had been putting off getting her a new coat until they were back on Earth.  These were designed with colonial weather in mind, not Earth’s deep winter of the past few years.  Leia had gotten her a different one for the milder weather here, which was what the girl was wearing now… but as he started to turn away, something drew his eye. 

            Curious as to _why_ he had noticed it, he pulled the racks apart to see it properly.  It had a straight collar with a snap, a row of large but dull black buttons down the left side… a hidden zipper on the inside to the far right.  He frowned, still not sure why he was looking at it, glancing back to the rack it had been on to see if it was simply styled differently from those next to it… and blinked. 

            The old, softened and smoothed areas of the leather glimmered a sort of purple indigo. 

            He shifted it again to make the light move over it.  The whole thing shone that dark faded purple-black – it was just more obvious on the worn areas.  Overall, it was well-used; someone wearing it would easily disappear into a crowd.   _Leia and Marie would probably call it ‘well-loved.’_   It was impossible to say how old it was, but it had aged well. 

            _Aa._   Now he knew why. 

            Glancing over at the mirror in the back, he shrugged off his backpack and pulled the jacket off its hanger, quickly undoing the zipper.  A moment later, he was tugging it on… and nodding to himself at the length – well below his belt, but not so long as to get in the way.  He zipped it up and turned to view his profile.  It didn’t tug tightly when he rolled his shoulders, and despite his thick sweater, it was still fairly baggy around the waist without being what Dasha had once told him was ‘far from stylish,’ and the zipper ended above belt while the front was still split; the metal of the zipper was too high to clink against anything hidden at his waistline or rip at his hand if he moved fast…  The set of buttons held one flap over to the side, hiding the silver of the zipper.  He bent over slightly at the waist and smiled approvingly; it was still long and loose enough, without looking oversized or suspicious. 

            “…Odin, that’s a girl’s coat.” 

            He chuckled slightly as he met Marlé’s eyes through the mirror before undoing the zipper.  “I’m aware.  It’s not for me.” 

            Noin had been complaining about how the light jacket that she had was short enough that she had to be careful of how she moved, or her gun would show.  He had borrowed a shoulder harness from her when he had raided that base with her, and hadn’t had to adjust the straps at all, which meant her shoulders were roughly the same width as his, so it should fit her. 

            And the leather shone purple the same way her hair and eyes glimmered in the right light.  It just… suited somehow. 

            Looking at the tag, he snorted in amusement.  _Conniving trap indeed._   Not that he was opposed to spending money – his means of gaining it were virtually unlimited – but he would have been inclined to buy it even if that weren’t the case.  It was hard to say how much of that was pure marketing, however, and how much it might be a matter of good taste.  “Did you find what you needed?” he asked his charge as he folded Noin’s new jacket over his arm and picked his bag back up, slinging it over one shoulder. 

            “I think so,” she temporized, still eying the jacket.  “Is that for my mom?” 

            “No.” 

            “It’s too big for me,” she noted. 

            “Observant,” he granted as he headed for the cashier. 

            She just frowned again.  “So who’s it for?” 

            He smirked – now she was just _handing_ it to him.  “A friend.” 

            She gave him an annoyed look.  “You have friends?”  Her tone was wry. 

            He snorted again as he pulled out his wallet.  “Yes.” 

            Marlé rolled her eyes slightly and seemed to think for a moment before focusing back on the coat.  “You have a female friend?”  He simply raised a brow; she’d already established that, really.  A moment later, she grinned broadly, grabbing a candy bar off the rack.  “You should give her this too; chocolate’s always appreciated.”  Glancing back at the rack, she grabbed a second kind as well, and held them out expectantly. 

            There was something deviant about her smile, but after a moment Odin decided it didn’t much matter and shrugged, taking them from her and handing the overly expensive sweet to the woman running the cashier.  She, in turn, smiled and nodded approvingly as she rung it all up and got a bag. 

            “You should put them in the inside pocket before you give it to her,” Marie added as they walked out. 

            Odin just shrugged.  “Remind me later.” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany**

            “Lena, we’re here,” Jake announced brightly. 

            Relena blinked at her name, shifting out of the slump she’d fallen into; she hadn’t really thought she might fall asleep.  “We’re where?” she asked blurrily.  There was something odd about his tone of voice… 

            “Munich.  Or specifically, Dorothy’s new townhouse.” 

            She was suddenly wary of looking out the window.  That sort of extremely chipper tone that meant he was trying to not cackle helplessly.  It was only putting off the inevitable, however, so she looked out the window… and stared.  “Please tell me I’m looking the wrong way and it’s on the other side of the street,” she mumbled. 

            “Nope!  That’s it.” 

            _…There is absolutely nothing to be said for that._   She squeezed her eyes shut again and dropped her head back against the headrest.  Jake gave in and started laughing delightedly. 

            When they had told Dorothy where they were planning on going, she had immediately decided she needed to buy some property nearby the princess’ new base of operations.  It had seemed like a sensible enough idea, especially when she had agreed to find something in the city proper instead of the quiet suburb Jake had described the new property was in.  She hadn’t really thought any more about it until Dorothy had given Jake her new address after he offered to help set up security… but really, she should have guessed. 

            Sighing again, Relena opened her eyes and undid her seatbelt, leaning forward to get a clearer look out the window while she waited for Jake to come around and open the door for her. 

            _Only Dorothy would call an outright mansion a **townhouse**._  

            “She gave you a key?” Relena asked as they went up the walk, shifting her knapsack on one hip; she had a million and one files to work through while her bodyguard surveyed the… _estate_. 

            “No.  Apparently Mitchell recommended her a local skeleton crew staff.  At least one of them is supposed to be here.”  He checked his watch.  “And Lin is due in in another twenty minutes or so…  So I’m sorry for the hassle, but stay with me until he’s here?  I trust Dave and all, but I don’t _know_ these guys yet.” 

            “Yet?” she asked curiously, trying to resist from rubbing more sleep out of her eyes; there was nothing there and it looked silly. 

            “Dave _did_ recommend them,” her friend returned, reaching out to press the doorbell.  “I promised to keep my claws retracted until I saw if they had any.” 

            “David has friends without claws?” she asked dryly. 

            He laughed again.  “None that I’ve met so far.”  After a moment, he added, “Though there _have_ been a few who were extraordinarily good at keeping theirs politely sheathed.” 

            “Oh?” 

            He gave her an amused look.  “I met David because we had the mutual friend of Treize.  If you need me to reach further, you might want to either take another nap or-” 

            “Hello!  I’m sorry it took so long to get to the door, we’ve been trying to get the coffee machine working, and-”  The young man stopped in his tracks as Relena turned an easy smile on him.  “And, um… uh… _your Highness_ …”

            “You all must get along marvelously with Dorothy,” Relena interrupted, stepping forward and offering a hand.  “Some days I would swear the woman’s veins run with coffee, not blood.” 

            He shook her hand easily enough, though with the sort of awe that meant he’d been wanting to for years now.  Then he blinked his way through whatever euphoria she had supposedly struck him with and realized, “You two are alone?”  His eyes whipped to focus on Jake.  “You-” 

            “Colonel Jacob Miller,” he inserted smoothly.  “I assure you that I can adequately guard the princess by myself until the rest of her retinue arrives.”  He cocked one brow.  “Are you going to let us in, or not?” 

            The man flushed immediately and practically flung the door back off its hinges as he stepped out of the way.  “Of course!  Sorry, I just-”  He appeared to visibly cut himself off  and took a deep breath.  “Sorry.”  He almost made to offer his hand to shake, then seemed to remember that he’d already done that, and instead grabbed at the back of his head in embarrassment.  “I’m Alexis Engal.” 

            She offered him another smile in return as Jake shook his head slightly and shut the door behind them.  It really wasn’t fair, she’d decided at some long ago point, to hold people’s nerves against them.  “Pleased to meet you, Herr Engal.  Had you finished figuring out the coffee machine yet?  I feel I could use the caffeine…” 

-

***

-

**May 6 th 198 – Tuesday – Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            “I can swing that,” Kasey decided after a moment.  “It’s a little tight, but that sounds like it’s what works best for everyone, all around.” 

            The woman gave a relieved sort of nod, biting her lip, so he leaned over and rested a hand on her shoulder, offering his own tired smile.  “Hey, listen, it’s fine, and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, just tell any Devil, and I’ll take care of it, alright?  Nobody’s doing too great right now, but…” He sighed and shrugged a little.  “Well, it’s better than two months ago, right?  We’ve got the whole summer ahead of us now.  Just… if you think you might run short again, try and warn me, alright?  That’s what this network is for; I’m not going to put up with anyone trying to terrorize you when sometimes shit just happens.” 

            “They threatened to break in and steal what I _did_ have,” she protested quietly.  “That I was hiding it, or I’d wasted it…”  Her expression hardened.  “Like I would waste _food_.  Or that my kids would take more than we agreed without us talking about it.”  Her eyes were worried again, though.  “They _are_ eating more, but it’s out of mine, not community; my son was the one who was really pushing for us to do this in December!” 

            “It probably got measured wrong to start with,” he soothed.  “Or someone double-dipped when your back was turned, or some such like that.  A lot of people’s gardens came up short too; this kind of thing _happens_.  I’m not blaming anybody… but tell a Devil or text Karina von Koll if anyone tries to threaten again, and tell _them_ that they ought to talk to me instead.  If they’re really wanting, I’ll see if I can pinch something together elsewhere.  Shit happens, we just have to roll with it.” 

            Mrs. Jansen nodded again, off in her own world for a moment, before blinking at him and smiling genuinely.  “You’re a good boy, Kasey… good man.  Your sister is well?  Your niece?” 

            He couldn’t help but grin back at her.  It never failed, any woman he talked to always asked after Renee… _everyone_ cared about babies, and with how much sway the Devil’s Get had anymore, she was practically an icon.  “Everyone’s been doing fine on my end,” he reassured her.  “Renee’s fussy lately, but I gather that’s normal for teething.  Father Espen and the Sister have her right now while I’m running errands.”  Icon or not, people tended to take you more seriously if you weren’t bouncing an infant with one arm, and Sister Isabel had insisted that Nee ought to socialize with other little ones for a while, or something.  Personally, Kay thought Isabel just missed having a baby around at that stage where they were finally starting to entertain themselves but couldn’t move far enough to be an utter nuisance; baby Abigal was very obnoxiously two now, and the newer orphans they had taken were older…  Though the Father had said they were supposed to be getting another infant in a week. 

            If the kid was of an age to play with Renee, it probably _would_ be good for both of them to hang out together. 

            “I’ll talk to you later, okay?  I have a few more people I’m supposed to check in with.  Don’t be a stranger.  And tell Kail I said hi.” 

            The food and work networking hadn’t really been his idea, per se, but he was the one who had gotten it set up then deeply rooted, after Luc died.  Nobody had much, and usually not enough of something or other, but if you pooled it… it worked so long as the community was mostly honest.  After the original organizing points, for better or worse a lot of what he had been doing was _keeping_ it honest… and making an example out of anyone trying to cheat their little system – at least, the ones who cheated more than a little.  An extra mouth now and again, whatever, but he’d personally hunted down the last punks who thought they could break into someone’s home and steal their supplies just because the didn’t live all in a group home and fight like the Devils.  There were always exceptions, but outright trying to leech off what everyone else was working for when it was _not_ easy to come by…  There were limits. 

            Since last December…  So much had changed, or melted back into brutality, or just…  Rina liked the phrase ‘gone to hell’ and he wasn’t exactly the type to disagree, all things considered.  Melissa preferred to sigh and just say they were a bit deeper again; he liked that better, but was willing to admit it more or less meant the same thing.  Rina had been using him as an anchor after losing Luc… and he’d done his best to be that for her.  Then he’d gotten deep into this, and into defending people who weren’t too good at it themselves who _weren’t_ Devils, and… 

            And somehow, it was May. 

            He was starting to think he knew literally _everyone_ in the damn city, now.  They sure as hell seemed to know him, at any rate – either as a good ally or as some sort of Robin Hood Boogeyman.  He at least still had his reputation as ‘Chaos’ even _with_ the baby on one hip half the time, married and everything now, shit… actually, him getting all domestic had somehow _cemented_ it.  Family man and…  He smothered a grin.  _Family man and fuckin’ Robin Hood Boogeyman._   He wasn’t sure if that was an upgrade or demotion from Shinigami, but it sure was funny, in its own demented way. 

            Everything he had done had been for others’ safety or to just keep the peace… and the Devils had backed him.  Melissa had backed him, and refused to let him just bury himself in the now… kept him rooted firmly, _proudly_ even, in his past, and looking to the future.  It _was_ going to get better damn it, if he had to _make_ it that way himself…  And somehow, not running from his past anymore gave him the courage to stand out now as Kasey von Koll and hold his ground.  No one was looking for him anymore – no one would honestly _recognize_ him without good reason, because he was showing them what to see. 

            Well… he wasn’t about to go dancing in front of Zechs or people he recognized, but really, no one who _hadn’t_ known them was going to do that either. 

            It had been interesting to see Hilde again, last March; pleasant even, really.  He’d almost been worried that she’d resent him moving on, but she’d only been too happy to bounce off with Melissa and chatter like schoolgirls.  _Well, after she hit me, but how was I supposed to have invited her to the wedding?_   Not that it had even been much of a wedding.  They’d just grabbed whoever was standing closest and run down to have Father Espen finally do it – well, okay, it had been a bit more exact than _that_ , but not by a lot.  But it had just felt… right.  And it still did.  And ‘Liss hadn’t tried to beat him about the head and shoulders with a rolling pin yet, so he figured she wasn’t too disappointed. 

            He and Hilde had managed to catch up a little, though.  They didn’t talk about anything really that she was up to, but… that was good too.  Zechs was going to go down eventually, whether he stepped down or was thrown, and then…  Well, Melissa had made it very clear that despite the ‘von Koll’ on their marriage certificate, she was _going_ to be ‘Maxwell’ once the name didn’t imply that they might need to run for their lives. 

            The idea kinda… made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, to use a cliché. 

            Though _Treize_ sending some cash as a wedding present through her father had been mildly terrifying.  He’d managed to mostly forget that Will was mixed up with him. 

            Shaking his head, he started jogging to the next house he needed to check in on.  _Days go as they go…_   He _never_ would have imagined himself doing this kind of social networking shit, though… 

-

***

-

**May 11 th 198 – Sunday – Figueira da Foz, Portugal**

            _“Oh, good morning, Sister…  Had you wanted to meet for breakfast?”_

            Relena carefully forced herself to not grind her teeth.  She had been pursuing that line of thought for quite some time, so it wasn’t too odd of a thought for him…  _At least, it wouldn’t be if he had **ever** taken me up on it in the past two months or more, or if I hadn’t stopped even asking **three weeks ago**._   “I’m afraid not, Milliardo,” she returned calmly.  “I doubt you’re up for the drive.” 

            A pause.  _“What?”_  

            Another slow breath.  _Calm…_   The sea wind blew her hair into her eyes, and she shielded the mouthpiece of her phone from the white noise of it with one hand.  “I’m in Portugal, Milliardo.”  She hadn’t been in the same _country_ as her brother for over a week. 

            He hadn’t even noticed. 

            Another pause.  _“You’re in Portugal.”_   There was a steel in his voice that made his thoughts on her ‘disappearance’ clear. 

            “I’m surveying field sites for the amplifier inspections,” she informed him coolly.  “The initial papers have been on your desk for a month; when you showed a total disinterest, I assumed you wanted me to stop bothering you with the follow-up.”  Closing her eyes, she bit back the comment that wanted to come out about how he could leave without even having her informed, but he didn’t notice when he had _signed off_ the papers for her tour.  That she had followed that schedule to the letter, only leaving Belgium a day early to see the mansion Dorothy had set up for herself in Germany. 

            Vindictively, she wondered how many weeks after she literally moved to another country it would take for him to realize she wasn’t next door anymore. 

            He sighed, and it at least sounded genuine.  _“I’m sorry, Relena, I’ve just been-”_  

            “Busy,” Relena finished for him.  “Yes, your aides informed me.” 

            _“Relena…”_

            “No, it’s fine,” she dismissed tiredly before looking back over her shoulder.  “I need to go…  I had just wanted to say hello, seeing as I haven’t seen you properly for a month.”  _Almost seven weeks, to be accurate._   “Have a good day, Milliardo.” 

            _“You as well, Relena.”_

            She hit the end button and sighed again, turning to face the wind fully, breathing deep the smells of the sea…  She hadn’t realized just how much she had _missed_ living by the ocean.  Japan had always felt like home when she was a little girl.  Her parents had moved there directly after Sanc fell, and she’d always reveled in the smell of the sharp saltwater… And she had realized, after reclaiming Sanc and standing on the ocean cliffs, that the sea breeze had _always_ been a part of what defined ‘home.’  She had long loved finding a place where she was just buffeted by the wind, almost as if it could sweep her away…  Something about it just made her feel powerful, made her head clear… 

            “Relena?” 

            Maybe when all this was over, she could settle back in at Sanc.  Newport hadn’t been destroyed this time, and while it wasn’t as central as Munich, it was more in the thick of things than Brussels…  And she didn’t want to use Brussels anyway, after her brother had firmly left his imprint on it. 

            _Har har,_ she thought sarcastically to herself as she turned to see who was calling her.  **_When_** _this is all over indeed.  It’s nice to be optimistic and all, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch… in any case, a few are bound to be useless roosters instead of hens._   “Aa, Lin,” she greeted with a smile.  _There is absolutely no reason for me to let Milliardo ruin my day._   “It’s nice up here, isn’t it?” 

            Lieutenant Lincoln Sobrie smiled back even as he crossed his arms.  “If you say so, Lena.  It’s too windy for my taste.” 

            She grinned in return and closed her eyes as she leant into the breeze, trying to memorize the feeling for the next time she felt down.  “How are we doing on time?” 

            Figueira da Foz really had next to nothing to do with her touring, but this time they had built extra leeway into her schedule, and she was finding it terribly worthwhile.  The pressure was nowhere near as high – though she was willing to admit that this slower pace would have been upsetting to her back then.  In any case, they had time to get other things done too, such as interviewing further staff for the Munich house.  Jake had been reviewing files, calling people and arranging visits since before they had decided on Munich in particular, but her tour was really the ideal excuse to go visiting in person and work through the final steps.  They were hitting two or three birds with one stone. 

            “We’re on schedule so far,” Lin returned amiably.  “We might run a little late in the end, though; I think Jake likes this one.” 

            “That’s promising,” the princess noted, opening her eyes to look down the rail to see Lieutenant de Leon attempting to watch her and mind his own business at the same time.  He was actually doing a surprisingly good job of it too.  “It’s peculiar, having all these new people around.”  Jake had slowly been recruiting to replace the men of her guard that Mitchell took with him when he formed up the Strike Force, but now with the move ahead of them, he was taking up a _lot_ more.  It wasn’t as though she was left alone with them – Lin was here of course, and Jake generally was too – but… it made her start to realize how foolish it may have been to just put herself in the hands of strangers before.  It had turned out fine, obviously, but…  she was inheriting her colonel’s paranoia, it seemed. 

            It made her miss Noin more than ever. 

            Though really, Jake stuck closer to her side than Noin had even at her most protective.  Comparatively, she was far safer now than he had been in the war… and it may or may _not_ have had anything to do with the small army Jake was assembling for her ‘invasion of Germany,’ as David was teasingly calling it.  He’d proven when Brussels had been attacked that he could work as his own one-man army… though then of course, he had proven _why_ she had so many guards as she did when he was almost killed in Amsterdam. 

            …She couldn’t think of Amsterdam anymore without a flood of emotions in just about every direction. 

            She turned an amused look on Lincoln as his teeth started to chatter, which he returned with a glare.  “How are you _not_ freezing?” he demanded. 

            “Look at Marsden,” she protested, gesturing toward the other Lieutenant that she could see.  The others were all out of her immediate line of sight.  “You’re the only one shivering.” 

            “I’m shivering because it’s _cold_ ,” he argued immediately. 

            She rolled her eyes a little at him.  “Baby.  It could be worse.”  Grinning broadly, she suggested, “I could make you come dress shopping with me and there wouldn’t be a thing you could do about it.” 

            “Honestly, I would prefer standing awkwardly in a _lingerie_ store to here right now.” 

            She snickered, feeling her face flush a little.  “I am _not_ taking you with me to shop for underwear.”  He started to roll his eyes, and she couldn’t help but add, “You’d tell Jake what kind of thing I looked at, and he’d start showing up with bras as often as he did blouses for me to try.”  He wouldn’t mean anything by it any more than he did the clothes he already brought her – he could be weird like that – but she didn’t particularly need him to make her blush hard enough to pass out.  It was bad enough when he’d set outfits out for her when she was in a rush, because she _knew_ he had to paw through her underwear drawer in order to grab and pack her clothes but…  _God, he **already** knows my taste._   Hopefully he’d already been refraining, and would continue to do so. 

            Lin covered his face with his hands, breathing a few slow breaths before he could look her in the eye again.  “I’m not getting into that.”  He grimaced.  “And I hate to say it, but… I think you grew; your pants are a little high-watered.” 

            That made her blink and look down.  She thought she would have noticed when dressing, but…  _Huh._   “I haven’t grown since I was thirteen,” she found herself noting, dismayed.  She had a _ridiculous_ number of outfits, and an inch or so wasn’t _too_ big of a deal, but what if it kept going?  As she was now, she couldn’t let her appearance look at all untended to, despite how vapid it might be.  Next she might be fighting pimples, a problem she’d never had…  “Shit.” 

            Lin seemed confused that it was bothering her.  “Relena, it’s a pair of pants.” 

            “ _All_ my pants are this length,” she argued, frowning.  “How much time do we have before we head back into the countryside?” 

            He checked his watch.  “About two hours.” 

            “Alright then,” she decided, waving at Lieutenant de Leon and turning away from the ocean.  “Let’s go.” 

            He gestured in hand signals to de Leon as well, then tapped at the communicator in his collar to tell the others… and stopped to blink at her incredulously.  “Wait, are we _actually_ going clothes shopping?” 

-

***

-

**L4**

            Marlé sighed, leaning back in her chair and rubbing at her eyes.  “I’m going cross-eyed,” she complained. 

            “Stop staring at it so hard.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “Any other sage advice?” 

            “Get a magnifier.” 

            _…That’s actually a **great** idea._   “Do you have one?” 

            “Yeah.”  She pointedly watched him for when he would glance her way and realize she was waiting for him to finish; a glare usually had him realizing she was waiting sooner, even if there was no way he could see it.  “I think I left it in Germany.” 

            “Germany?”  She rubbed at her eyes some more.  “Germany _where_?” 

            “…Zurich.  I think.” 

            She paused to turn and really _look_ at him this time… and blinked.  He _looked_ about half asleep on his keyboard, but his eyes were still flicking across the screen.  Under another minute’s observation, she saw him tilt his head to the left so there was enough room for his right hand to slide under it and tap something out with almost the same speed she saw him type _normally_ with _two_ hands. 

            She wasn’t sure if he was that tired with his body on auto-pilot, or if he was bored enough that he’d decided he wanted to see if he could read something faster if it was at a half sideways sort of tilt.  _Either way…_  

            “Odin?” 

            “Mm?” 

            “Zurich is in Switzerland.” 

            Her pseudo brother stopped and considered that, looking up and to the side.  “…I think my stash in Germany is in a box I buried somewhere.”  He frowned.  “Near…. Something tall.  With glass.” 

            She tried to keep herself from giggling.  He was _really_ tired.  “And in Zurich?” 

            “…#3248.” 

            “Mm?” 

            “…I’m thinking a safety deposit box, but I’m not entirely sure about which bank.” 

            She smiled and shook her head.  She loved moments like this, where he was sorta lazily happy and not thinking in terms of expectation or ability, just… content to give her funny looks for trying to design something for over a week that he could probably hack together in a few minutes.  Comfortable enough to do his sorta idle random chatter, not paying attention to his surroundings beyond the fact that she was safe to have nearby. 

            Her mom hadn’t gotten to be quite this comfortable with him yet, but she was starting to get close to it, now.  “Are we doing anything tomorrow?” 

            He yawned.  “You need to know how to set up temporary perimeter security… and you need to get better at running from me.” 

            Marlé made a face.  “I just don’t know why this is taking so long for me to figure out,” she bemoaned, looking at all the pieces of tiny cell phone hardware.  “I thought I had it, but…” 

            Odin pulled his head off the desk and rubbed at his face.  “The next time I say you’re overcomplicating it, you should try… uncomplicating it.  Instead of going off on a tangent.  _Size_ is the secret of what will or won’t work, and you know that.”  He blinked over at the time on his screen before shutting the laptop.  “We need to sleep.”  With an annoyed kind of sigh, he started stretching his bad leg out. 

            Marie really agreed, on all counts, she needed to just come back to her project with fresh eyes… and maybe give in and ask after the specs of a few communication devices he’d had before.  She wanted to _make_ something… but in the end she still _would_ be, and more examples of functioning pieces would be a good thing to have to understand… and maybe just something that worked in the meantime until she got her thing fully fleshed out?

            She really _hadn’t_ gotten the kitten as part of the ‘be creative’ order; that had been random and hilarious, but entirely unrelated.  She had started off on _this_ … which was still a mess, but if she could figure it out they’d have, like… the most awesome phones ever by adding something that could piggyback most of the common models.  _Maybe more of it has to be done through programming, not hardware…_   That would be the opposite take of what she had been thinking before, but maybe… 

            …Maybe she’d look into that… tomorrow. 

            She sighed herself, turning off the desk lamp.  “Do you want any help with that?”  He usually didn’t anymore unless it had been a long day, but they’d also reached an understanding at some point that he found it comforting, or safe, to have her massage the muscles.  Well, only the lower leg, of course, the upper would be… just no, that would weird them both out.  It had turned into a sort of trust thing to do over the months traveled…

            It had almost been a year now, since she’d stumbled out onto the wet street with nothing but the pajamas she was wearing.  Some days she’d look out at the viciously wet weather and cringe _for_ Odin even before she saw that his limp was more pronounced that day. 

            But today had been a fairly lazy day with steady weather, so he waved her off.  She nodded in turn… and went to dig their pajamas out of the suitcase.  It was something utterly stupid like four in the morning anyway. 

-

***

-

**May 12 th 198 – Monday – On the road to Serpa, Portugal**

            “I feel bad,” Dorothy announced. 

            Relena raised her brows, not entirely sure how to interpret that.  “Do you think you’re coming down with something?” 

            “No, the other kind of feel bad,” the woman insisted.  “I’m getting stressed again, and bored, and I haven’t been able to do anything about it.” 

            The princess frowned, flicking her eyes towards the front of the car to see if Jake had reacted at all yet.  He was pointedly focusing on the road for now, though, which meant the ball was entirely in her court… and she did her best to give the subject serious thought.  Sometimes it seemed like Dorothy was perpetually about to fall into a depression purely for lack of inspired direction; she could only take causes from others for so long before she needed something _more_. 

            As far as Relena gathered, before she had come back to Brussels her friend had been in a constant sort of manic depression.  It was a wonder Milliardo had tolerated her, to be honest; she had gotten more and more unpredictable and unreliable as time had gone on, with occasional lapses into utter obedience.  She was terrified of stepping away from either of the Peacecraft siblings, however, of being alone, even if that would make her decisions all her own… Relena thought it was possibly because Dorothy had only really ever had the illusion of control her entire life, and she had no idea what to do with it now that her relatives were dead.  The heiress had rarely been what you could call ‘obedient’ with her either, but she had known the ins and outs of manipulating those with hold over her, had had a constant play of games and intrigue, half of them made out of boredom… 

            She honestly believed, knowing the other woman as she did now, that Dorothy Catalonia had come to the school in Sanc purely because it was something different to do – because she was _bored_.  She had talked her grandfather – Duke Dermail – into it by presenting it as an odd sort of espionage, but really… she had just wanted a viable excuse to show off and be one of the girls.  It had literally been the first time the young genius had _ever_ attended school, having always had tutors hired for her before, and…

            Well, that actually went a long way towards explaining a great deal of her personality and how she interacted with people. 

            Such as simply turning to someone she looked up to, announcing ‘I feel bad’, and just expecting Relena to sort it out for her.  She respected the level of trust and didn’t take it for granted, but really, sometimes… sometimes her friend was so genuinely a _child_ that it was mind-numbing. 

            “Well, what have you tried?” she asked, trying to find enough of a starting point that she could catch her friend before she realized Relena might be just as clueless. 

            “Almost everything,” she returned, sounding annoyed now.  “Reading, cooking, gossiping, shopping, finding random little games… and they do help, but not enough.  I want to scream my head off at all these old men trying to outsmart me from my inheritance, but I _can’t_ do that, and everything just seems so… _boring_.” 

            _Wonderful._   She closed her eyes.  _How am I supposed to fix anything with **that** attitude?_   “Has it ever been this bad before?” 

            “When you were gone on tour the first time,” she returned promptly. 

            “Okay, what did you do then?” 

            “Well, eventually I started to wander Brussels in the middle of the night to see if anything was different.” 

            _…How is she so deviant and utterly naïve at the same time?  What on **Earth** made her think that might be a good idea?_  

            A little voice in the back of her head pointed out that she’d obviously run out of sensible options, so she’d gone back to more random ones.  Which, more than her announcement at feeling bad, was what was _really_ indicative of how badly her mood had slipped. 

            “Which is how I found the clubs.” 

            Relena debated with herself for a moment before deciding that no, there really _wasn’t_ a reason to hold back the question.  “Why did you go wander the city in the middle of the night _alone_?” 

            “Well, because none of you were _there_ ,” Dorothy returned with a roll of her eyes.  “I’m hardly helpless, and you all were gone and busy, and I couldn’t leave Brussels because of your brother making me work for him.” 

            _…Meaning she hadn’t been able to quit despite hating her position because she didn’t have any guarantee of being taken care of until she was old enough to receive her inheritance._   Dorothy was willful and impulsive, but she had at least some of her priorities right.  Of course, Milliardo probably would have supported her, but that wasn’t a stable alternative in the Romefeller heiress’ eyes… and considering her brother’s history, Relena couldn’t actually argue with that logic at all.  Dorothy had pushed her boundaries as far as she thought was safe – which was far further than Relena might have _ever_ dared – but she would only risk so much defiance with someone who, in the end, held ultimate power over her. 

            Just having Dorothy free of the military had done wonders for her mental health.  She would never have been willing to stall the elder Peacecraft for time during their mad run to Amsterdam in December, had she still been on Milliardo’s payroll; Relena suspected the move to Munich might do her just as much good as coming into her inheritance had. 

            “And the clubs helped with the stress, didn’t they?” asked Jake from the front seat. 

            Dorothy ran her fingers through her hair, staring deeply into it… into the green highlights.  And it was only then, somehow, that Relena realized that she had probably done the dye job in the first place for when she was clubbing. 

            And she had _maintained_ the dye job impeccably despite having not gone once since she was drugged last October. 

            “There’s something unique about it,” she murmured after a moment, still focused on the green strands.  “I don’t normally enjoy loud music, but there…  it’s almost like everyone’s synced their hearts to the beat.  Like no one’s just themselves anymore; they’re part of _it_ , and _it_ doesn’t have to worry about anything. _It_ doesn’t have any responsibilities.  It’s…”  She frowned, apparently not finding the words she wanted.  “It’s remarkable.  But…” She didn’t look like she was about to cry, but her expression was disturbed enough that it almost made Relena want to.  “But it’s too dangerous, isn’t it?”  Looking up finally, she focused on Relena.  “That night, it… it could happen again, if I go…  So I _can’t_.” 

            With that, she focused back on her hair again, and Relena felt like a horrible person for having judged before, or for having somehow brought the subject up.  Again, she was struck with how some days Dorothy could be so terribly _young_ … but how she wasn’t a child, whose world you could easily set to rights with a hug and reassuring words. 

            She looked up to the front of the car and met Jake’s eyes in the rear view mirror for a long moment before he flicked his gaze to Dorothy and announced, “I’m picking my own clothes.” 

            She blinked.  “What?” 

            “Your house in Munich is all set up anyway when Lena’s isn’t, and we were already planning to stay at least one night there with you this week,” Jake continued as if he hadn’t skipped to the middle of an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked.  “You pick the club, and I’ll see what kind first, so I know the style, but I’m not letting you dress me.”  His eyes flicked back to Relena.  “We’ll set it up so Relena has one of her sit still days, so I can sleep in the next morning…  But I’ll go with you so nothing bad can happen, alright?” 

            Dorothy’s eyes were wide… and Relena smiled as her friend literally _bounced_. 

            Hopefully, that really might be enough. 

-

***

-

**Prague, Czech Republic**

            Lucrezia Noin sighed as she shut her door, and flopped backwards onto the bed she hadn’t slept in for at least a week.  Life was… a trial, more often than not.  Not that she generally minded, but sometimes, all the little things added up. 

            Sally had somehow been keeping them hidden, healthy, and fed throughout two continents, which had to be some sort of record considering how much underground shit there _was_.  However, in the end of the day, despite the various jobs the older woman had managed to pick up and do like a pro, Sally was a soldier in name only.  So while the blonde’s hair slowly turned more of a brown from never seeing sunlight – because Zechs _knew_ he was looking for _her_ – as the woman impeccably kept house, it had fallen to _Lucrezia_ to work out how to make this revolution _happen_. 

            There was more than one reason why Sally hadn’t even begun to properly fight until almost eighteen months after _Libra_ ’s Fall; she’d needed someone else to run it.  And it had taken about that long for Lucrezia to pull her shit together and decide what she wanted – no, _needed_ – to do. 

            She still didn’t properly understand depression, despite what Sally said.  In the end, you got tired of crying and found something else to do.  Break down enough times, and you begin to resent the man who’d done it to you… especially when you honest to God _knew_ that none of it was your own fault.  In her head she’d known that from the start, but it had taken time to convince the rest of her… and in the end…

            Well, there wasn’t much left in her for Zechs Marquise but contempt.  To have fallen so low… she would never have imagined.  Maybe he’d just been weak, despite whatever he wanted, but at the end of the day, it was the consequences that mattered, not the reasoning.  She couldn’t even pity him anymore. 

            Stealing things from him in her Hilde guise had been downright cathartic.  Before that, training Hilde into the lean little psychotic ball of muscle she was had been deeply vindicating, considering how once upon a time the girl had tricked and betrayed Milliardo to try to save them from the _Libra_ folly… the fact that she had gotten so _good_ at it had been an unexpected bonus.  Flying Heavyarms was an amazing, fantastic, exhilarating experience… she never would have imagined how different it could feel to fly a gundam… 

            But she knew she would freeze up the moment she tried to fight him directly in it.  She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her hands around the blanket.  It wasn’t _fucking fair_ how he could do all this to everyone, to _her_ , and she couldn’t even fight back – not truly.  So she flew Heavyarms now… but religiously avoided the man she’d once loved. 

            She’d _actually told_ Hilde and Xutao that it was because she was worried he would recognize her style of fighting.  And they either believed that shit, or knew better than to question her. 

            Everyone was supposed to be allowed their own issues, right? 

            She sighed and rolled over onto her stomach to stare at the wall.  Direct, personal opposition or not, Sally planned for survival, not war, and they were running low on fuel cells.  Not just standard fuel cells that they could raid the Regime for either – the really complex, high-end ones that you could keep a village-sized space station afloat indefinitely with three of – one on, two off at any particular time. 

            The kind that you periodically burned out, when you were using it to run the ultracompact fusion reactor in a gundam. 

            The kind whose production was strict as hell on because, you know… you could use one to run a gundam.  Heavyarms was _nothing_ like flying other MS, it made her old Taurus look like one of those foam kickboards kids played on in the pool when learning to swim, but _damn_ it used up a fuckton of energy. 

            So she could keep their gundam running for maybe another two months, if she played it right…  which meant maybe not letting Hilde and Xu take it out again after all, because they were sloppy.  _Well, not Hilde, at least._   She hadn’t let Xu fly it yet because Schbeiker just outperformed him no matter what he tried on the sims, but he had a better concept of conservation than the little spitfire did. 

            So she had a month, maximum, to figure out how to solve that deficiency.  She’d already shaken down the Maguanacs for any assistance there without much gain… despite his nature, Quatre apparently hadn’t ever shared the interworkings of Sandrock with them beyond asking for specific tools or help with the more generic sort of tasks.  She’d had her boys trying alternate versions of various power sources for the past two months with what had originally looked promising, but now appeared to be a dead end.  And she wasn’t quite confident enough in their abilities to have them try to take apart one of the cells they _did_ have to try reverse engineering how to make one of the damn things.  It was starting to look like that might be their only chance, but she wasn’t _quite_ the desperate yet. 

            Maybe in another two weeks. 

            If it wouldn’t _kill_ one of those space stations, she’d steal one from there.  Or out of a colony hub.  But she had something against possibly condemning a lot of innocent people to vacuum.  It would be a bit in line with, you know, dropping a battleship on the planet.  She’d never been the type to go jump off a bridge just because everyone else was doing it. 

            _…Jumping off a building.  Out of a fifty-story window._   She’d watched the remnants of the satellite backup feed on that stunt as well as hearing Relena and Sally’s alternate versions of the story… and she hadn’t been too sure what to think.  Heero had stabilized by the time she saw him again in Sanc, even if he probably _hadn’t_ by the time she brought him to fight Zechs in Antarctica…  Then it had been like seeing someone else entirely when he had joined her and Sally on _Peacemillion_. 

            _That_ boy had been solid as well as confident, and even… wise, in a way.  He’d talked Wufei into staying and helping them, he’d gotten Quatre to successfully use the Zero system, he’d been the calm presence that anyone with half a mind could see Duo _needed_ …  He had changed so much as to seem an almost impossible contrast to when she had gotten to know him and Quatre in Sanc… 

            And yet the young man she had met with a handful of weeks ago was, again, an entirely different person.  She supposed she had never known any of the five _well_ to begin with, but just the same…  _Hm._   He’d had someone texting him randomly before; doing so herself shouldn’t be a problem.  She had no long-term gauge on his personality, really, but from what she had managed to gather so far… 

            _Well, it couldn’t hurt to ask._   Shifting onto one elbow, she fished her phone out of her pocket and started trying to compose a message that would look innocent in a general sort of way.  _“I’m trying to figure out how to power your old friend’s boat.  I don’t suppose you’d know where I could find any batteries for the thing?”_   She didn’t actually expect any kind of response, but that should be obvious enough for an ex-gundam pilot to understand… and probably snort at, because she’d just called a gundam a _boat_.  Really…  She rolled her eyes and snorted.  Really, _she_ should be offended by that… a _boat_? 

            It was probably around time for her to admit to herself that she was exhausted and sleep deprived – that she needed to just ignore the bundle of nerves going nuts in her belly and pass out in spite of her next pending meltdown. 

            She must have followed her own orders for once and begun to doze, because she jumped hard when the phone chirped that she had a new text message.  Groaning, she grabbed it, flicked through the unlock sequence… and snorted. 

            _‘Do you have any idea how hard those are to get through security?’_  

            No actual question, no annoyance, no poking fun at her, no underestimation… just that dry sort of confidence – maybe some incredulity – as he pointed out a different problem entirely. 

            _Well, it was worth a shot._   Idly, she wondered if Quatre knew how to make them.  Of course, that involved finding the Winner Corp Heir in the first place…  But he’d constructed Wing Zero on his own, hadn’t he?  

            Her phone chirped again and she blinked at it being another message from Heero’s phone… and laughed. 

            _‘Was there anything else you wanted?’_   She could just _feel_ the sarcasm, and she _totally_ deserved it too. 

            _‘Heavy artillery shells and a pony.’_   It was somehow so _unique_ and eye-catching to get a smile or amused look from Mr. Perfect-Soldier, as Duo had called him, that she just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  The way he’d laughed and _played_ on the phone when he called her a few weeks ago had been astonishingly soothing, she supposed because he just… however confident he’d been on _Peacemillion_ , he’d still seemed broken somehow, and he didn’t, anymore. 

            _Chirp._   She hit the button. 

            _‘…A pony?’_  

            She just started giggling hard at that point, because really, he had apparently missed her point _entirely_ …  And she hadn’t had this level of amusingly stupid conversation in a while.  Shifting again so she could hold the phone properly enough to type easily, she added, just in case he got the idea that she was _serious_ , _‘A pink one.’_  

            He didn’t immediately reply to that one… and so it was that she found herself drifting back to sleep.  She was willing to admit that she might have really needed that little bit of laughter… and sleep was more than welcome. 

-

***

-

**May 14 th 198 – Wednesday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah**

            In retrospect, he really shouldn’t have volunteered for this.  Someone had neglected to mention how hard it was to run in sand.  Or how little or much the dunes could hide.  He hadn’t felt this flatfooted since his anti-grav simulation… and these psychos were somehow both everywhere and nowhere at once. 

            Sam tried to react, he _tried_ , when someone slammed into him from behind, but all he managed was to not take the hit as directly as he saw a glimmer of a blade in the moonlight.  Fuck, they were _used_ to these kinds of conditions! 

            _I’m not going to make it back._

            Despite that haunting his mind, he was far from giving up, trying to fight back blindly, everything shadows and glimmers and splotches of less dark on pitch black as the clouds moved back to hide even the glimmer of moonlight that gave him a chance at all.  But just when he was finally convinced he was well and truly _fucked_ , bleeding from a few places, he heard an odd sort of gurgle… and the clouds parted enough to see the silhouette of a taller man standing at his attacker’s back, holding his arms to his sides with one arm, the other holding a blade that _didn’t_ shine anymore as blood poured from the first man’s neck like water out a faucet. 

            They met eyes for a moment, his rescuer calm and intent as he dropped the twitching body in the sand and raised one finger to his lips in a motion of silence.  Next was a sort of ‘follow me’ gesture… and then the clouds were back. 

            Before Sam could decide what to do, he felt someone grasp at his shoulder and a heavily accented voice muttered, “Sound barely carries, but a shout will.  The others helped lead them away, but we need to go – I know a building nearby to pass time before they move on.  No one will count heads or recognize the body until morning.”  The hand shifted to grasp his forearm instead.  “This way.” 

            “My ride will leave with or without me soon,” Sam protested in a whisper as he weakly followed. 

            The man paused.  “Where?”  Sam licked his lips and said the name of the extinct town, to which he nodded.  “There, then.  This way.”  He started off in a slightly different direction than before. 

            It wasn’t too long before walking blind and the confusion and silence was too much.  “Who are you?” 

            “Talk low, don’t whisper.  The dunes mask sound, but whispers carry further than a low tone.”  After a moment, he asked, “You’re Regime?  What are you doing in this hell?” 

            “Scouting.”  He tried to keep his stomach from twisting, but it was a lost cause. 

            The man let out a bleak sort of chuckle.  “You found more than you wanted, then.  Will the army come?” 

            Sam licked his lips again.  “Once we know enough, yes.” 

            They walked on in silence again for a while before the man finally asked, “If we give you information?” 

            “We?”  He was breathless, though he wasn’t sure if it was fear, exhaustion, or the possibility of what his rescuer might be saying. 

            “My squad was gathered by a man trying to find means of escape; we’ve not found a way out, yet.  He can tell you where all camps are, when.” 

            His heart was pounding.  His mind was flying a mile a minute, remembering what he was or wasn’t authorized to do… Colonel Mitchell had said he hoped, but didn’t expect it…  “How many camps all together?” 

            “Eight,” he answered with no hesitation.  “Eight in the Sahara between here and the sea, as far as the Gulf.  Fourteen total, for Libya – I can’t say, further west.  Your admirer, he came from one of the two direct west, and there are three more between us and Egypt, Sudan…  The veterans, they form the fringe – we catch their seconds…”  A disgusted snort.  “We starve, soon.  The south is more empty, and deadly for it.”

            Sam took a deep breath.  “Your leader will meet with mine?” 

            The man hummed slightly in his throat.  “In eight days?  Where I leave you?” 

            He thought he was going to die, from how hard his heart was pounding.  Still, he made himself think, adding together how much time Mitchell might want to gather everyone first…  “Ten.”  He licked his lips.  “We, ah…  Supplies?  Surround the rendezvous, and claim a hidden stash there, maybe?  We’ll bring crates.” 

            “Mm.”  Another moment passed.  “My name is Vaska.”  Then, “I want to see your face before you’re gone, and see you again in ten nights.” 

            And that was how he got shafted into coming back when he’d been swearing he never would less than ten minutes before. 

-

***

-

**May 15 th 198 – Thursday – Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s Townhouse**

            Relena frowned and looked up from her map as she heard Jerome’s communicator say that the car Jake had taken out with Dorothy was coming back in.  Checking to clock to be sure she hadn’t just lost track of time, she set her pencil down and looked over to Lieutenant Moretti.  “Rome?” 

            “They’re too early,” he agreed, turning to follow her when she stood and walked out of the room.  She made it to the top of the stairs before she heard the kitchen door slam open, and stopped there, waiting.  She was planning to immediately ask what had happened, but as Jake stormed around the corner and stalked up the stairs, her throat went dry. 

            She hadn’t thought much about them going out, and had been in the shower when they had finished getting ready and left.  She hadn’t thought it would be such a difference, but… she hadn’t _thought_ … and she wasn’t entirely sure she _could_ think as heat swirled through her face and down her body… 

            He looked like something out of a rock star magazine. 

            His hair was spiked instead of its usual tousle, which made the contrast between all the shades of blonde that sharper.  His shirt was high-collared in an Asian style and sleeveless, nearly skintight, black with some sort of deep, bright blue pattern she didn’t pay attention to beyond how it made his eyes look _electric_.  And… it took a moment to realize _why_ his eyes sucked her away from the sculpted arms and form-fitting leather pants, the click of his two small hoop earrings in one ear touching as he tossed his head. 

            _I am **never** going to protest the idea of a man wearing eyeliner **ever** again._   It made the almond-shaped tilt of his eyes suddenly obvious – made him look Asian despite the cobalt eyes and blonde hair.  Everything about him exuded power, dominance… 

            She fought to keep herself from starting to breathe too hard, her whole body shivering from something that wasn’t cold.  Watching his muscles glide smoothly into his motions was suddenly taking her whole attention… 

            She had never seen _anyone_ so… so _purely_ masculine sex appeal less than two yards away from her – coming closer much, much faster, fast! – let alone have it be _her_ colonel, her best friend, Jake. 

            She was too breathless to ask what was going on.  What focus that wasn’t entirely lost on him was being spent trying _terribly_ hard to not show how weak her knees were getting, despite his irritated beyond belief expression and body language as he more or less brushed past her and continued to storm the suite they had commandeered in Dorothy’s house.  She turned to watch him go, still confused and gathering herself back up… as he slammed the bathroom door behind him and the water started running. 

            Slowly, Relena turned wide eyes on her green-haired friend.  “What did you _do_?” 

            “I- I didn’t!” the woman protested instantly, looking frantic.  “I mean, we were there!  And it seemed like-  I didn’t think he’d be all-  He’s _mad_!  I didn’t want to make him mad, I just-  Well, I guess it wasn’t really-  I should have thought about it-  But he’s _crazy_ , why would that-” 

            _And isn’t **that** reassuring._   Walking back towards the bathroom herself, she gestured Dorothy after her.  “You need to _apologize_.”  Now that she wasn’t going weak in the knees, she was more or less positive that that expression had meant he was forcing himself to not break something. 

            “I did!” she protested immediately.  “I did, over and over again but he won’t even _look_ at me!”  If she wasn’t there already, the girl was fast approaching hysterics. 

            The water turned off and, looking close to tears, Dorothy cried out, “I’ll never do it again!” 

            “I should hope not!”  He made an aggravated sort of noise.  “Just give me, like…  Give me ten minutes, and we can go back.” 

            The other woman went still at that, obviously not expecting the concession… before squeaking happily and running out of the room – probably to change who knew what part of her outfit. 

            Relena shook her head, debating if it was even worth asking at this point, when Jake let out a heavy sigh and opened the door. 

            She managed to control herself better somehow, even with him bare-chested, a towel hanging around his neck.  He still made her heart pick up and thud harder than usual, but… well, she could get past that. 

            Probably. 

            He looked so very tired, in a put upon sort of way… but at least the anger was gone.  She didn’t think he really had it in him to hurt Dorothy, he catered to her like a little sister and he understood how much she really needed him as a stable person she could look to, but apparently the heiress had just discovered one of his limits.  “She’s not driving you insane, is she?” 

            He sighed again and reached up to pat the towel better around the nape of his neck.  “Only mostly.”  She saw the glimmer of black calligraphy tattooed on his left side before he dropped his arms again and moved to hang the towel back on the rack. 

            Still… she frowned.  “Did she actually upset you that much?” 

            His eyes narrowed.  “She _knew_ better.  And this way, she won’t follow through on any weirdass urge again, because she’ll remember tonight.” 

            Relena understood… but she was dying of curiosity now.  “What did she _do_?”  It was good to know he’d been blowing his own reaction out of proportion, but still. 

            He snorted, picking his shirt up off the counter and pulling it back over his head.  “Honestly?” 

            “Truly.” 

            Jake looked at her with that sort of sideways tilt of his head he usually did… yet a new heat swirled through her body at it.  Shaking his head, he reached up to do the buttons on the side of his collar.  “She _licked_ me.” 

            …All thought processing crashed to a halt.  “She _what_?” 

            He started snickering, leaning back against the door.  “Yeah… my thoughts exactly, Princess.  My thoughts _exactly_.” 

            She started chuckling helplessly herself…  Then outright laughing as she realized that he might have been blowing it out of proportion to make sure Thea never repeated her actions… but he’d also felt the need to _come home and wash_. 

            “I know what you’re thinking,” he argued after a moment, tilted cobalt narrowing, “but I don’t think _you_ appreciate my situation.” 

            She just laughed harder.  In some ways, he was just as bad as Dorothy.  He really, _really_ was. 

 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, questions, theories? So much of this chapter was the final pieces to get the ball rolling in all courts… And I really don’t think 16,200+ words makes up for the shitty timing, but hopefully it at least helps.


	4. Stranger Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin continues seeing where the wind takes him - much to the frustration and amusement of others. Everyone else meets new people and plan for the next big events - both in Europe and Africa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... is my favorite chapter. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did.  
> \--  
> Edit: Mostly just grammar, though Heero/Odin’s last scene is mildly expanded and clarified.

**_-_ **

**_ Stranger Things _ **

**_\--_ **

_Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent…_

_– Arthur Conan Doyle_

**_\--_   
**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**May 20 th 198 – Tuesday – Swiss Alps**

            “What is this again?” Noin asked as she slid her gloves on, checking to make sure she had everything she wanted before they got out of the cab of the truck.  The details hadn’t concerned her too much before, as everything was in line and they’d had a long drive ahead of them.  Ahmad had pulled out his knapsack as soon as he’d turned off the engine, however, and was opening the file. 

            It was late at night in some out of the way area starting to return to wilderness, as uninhabitable as it was.  Grimacing, she rubbed her leather-clad hands back over her face; already she was missing the heat that had been pouring through the vents while the engine was still on.  They weren’t exceedingly far off from anything – at least not enough that trucks driving through would seem odd – but there was no one within a hundred miles either, making it an ideal Sweeper drop spot. 

            Three years ago, this had been a countryside resort sort of destination; the kind of place where you’d bring the whole family for a ski resort in the alps, to have fun in the snow before curling up inside with a cup of hot chocolate and good company, because you were all on vacation and doing nothing of import was the entire point.  It was human nature to enjoy groups and trust like that… the kind of thing her family had done before her mother had gotten sick; before she had talked her father into letting her go to the Academy, because joining OZ wasn’t the same thing, really, as signing up for the Alliance.  It was supposed to have been safer, more exclusive…  And even after she had gone to Africa, snow lodges were the kind of place all the Noins would have family reunions – where they went when she took a vacation back to Europe.  She had reveled in the cold as much as the love of her family, then, enjoying the escape from Tanzania’s heat. 

            She still hadn’t decided what she thought of the fact that her father’s favorite resort, before it had shut down with _Libra_ ’s Fall, was only twenty miles from here.  There were so many emotions mixed up in the idea that she wasn’t sure how to even begin unraveling them – or if she wanted to in the first place.  She hadn’t been able to speak to her father for years now, and probably wouldn’t for months more yet. 

            She was in the process of winding her scarf higher around her face when she noticed her Maguanac friend was frowning.  “Ahmad?” 

            “The details are wrong,” he muttered after another long moment.  “It says the drop was done by the _Raka_ , but she hasn’t been in the right sectors for this in over a week, I’m nearly positive.  The container size is also not their usual, though not an uncommon type.”  He looked up at her seriously, brow furrowed.  “I would not have signed off on this without greater explanation, Lucrezia, but it’s already approved.” 

            Her thoughts swirled violently as she tried to consider what this might mean.  “There are far easier methods to hurt us by.”  If this had gotten through security as much as Ahmad was suggesting, then it had taken an intricate amount of both knowledge and footwork. 

            _If this is an ambush us like this, then it’s possibly the most inconvenient and contrived trap I’ve seen since I turned seven._

            “I agree.”  His look was curious, yet understated. 

            Lucrezia understood the unspoken question, and fingered the fringe on her scarf, considering.  She _did_ have at least one friend that might go through that kind of backwards effort… but she was fairly sure that if he had found her, Jake would have tried something more personal and direct than this.  She didn’t have any enemies this convoluted, however… not unless it was somehow Treize, but, like Jake, this wasn’t his style.  Une’s, maybe, but the insensitive bitch had been decapitated in front of a live crowd in January of 196; it wasn’t like a firing squad, where something could have been faked. 

            _If Treize **did** figure out where I disappeared to, he’d offer an olive branch of some sort – not slip a space capsule through surveillance to one of our less common drop points and rig it to explode on being opened._   She was against contacting her one-time instructor not not due to a perceived possible violence, but because she was unsure if he would allow them anything even approaching equal footing – not if he thought he could suck the advantage out of them at a lower cost to himself. 

            _Maybe Jake’s worried about where we stand?_   But really, she couldn’t talk to Jake any more than she could talk to her father – there were too many factors to consider, and those were only the ones she was catching.  Knowing her old friend, he was probably neck-deep in intrigue without letting anyone know he was playing puppet master.  There were days when he was frighteningly like Treize, only lacking in anything even approaching etiquette. 

            “Not to suggest anything rude,” she returned after a moment.  “But are there any chances that this is just a mistake of our own?  On either, or both ends?” 

            “A chance, yes, of course,” he agreed easily enough.  “But it’s a chance with the kind of odds that I would not hesitate to bet my firstborn on.  This would _have_ to have been a mistake between more than three people, all of whom know their jobs well.”  He pursed his lips.  “But I see that you’re not appropriately dismayed enough for this to be taken as a dangerous threat we ought to simply drive away from.”  Tilting his head slightly, looking at her oddly, he asked,  “General?” 

            She let out a sigh.  “It’s either neutral or friendly, I’m nearly positive.  I can think of allies who might do something like this as an oblique favor, but we should triple check everyone once we have it open… and open it remotely.”  Sighing, she opened the door of the semi, picking up her duffel as she slid down to the ground.  “I’ll set up the relay – you tell the guys what’s going on.” 

            Ahmad’s tone was jovial.  “Yes, ma’am.” 

            It was a few minutes later, when she’d made her way to the top of the massive thing and she could hear her men laughing and joking with each other as they came close, that she saw the inscription roughly hewn into the surface near the release – probably with a high grade blowtorch – that her heart skipped a beat and she realized she could do away with a lot of extra work. 

            _239s138._  

            “Change of plan,” she called down to the others as they drew close enough to hear.  “We can do this fast after all.  The sender left a note by the catch.” 

            “A note?” Kyle called back, incredulous. 

            “A message that only two young men and I would know the meaning of,” she clarified, feeling a grin spread across her face.  239s138 had been the code to get down to the MS she’d stashed away in Sanc without Relena’s knowledge, and she’d _only_ ever shared it with Heero and Quatre.  She’d cleared the access for Relena when they realized there was no real hope left for the survival of the little kingdom, then ripped the manual decoders she’d installed off the walls and took them with her to burn them personally so that the knowledge of the code was kept sacrosanct… pointedly to maintain this kind of veracity. 

            The fact that it had taken extra punching of keys to make the s lowercase also indicated that it wasn’t someone else.  Though looking at the handwriting, she almost pitied him for trying to scrawl out a proper s crudely enough that it _almost_ looked like the 6 that you had to add in the right timed sequence to get the lowercase.  _Whatever he used to etch the capsule deep enough to survive a fall through the atmo must have been rather unwieldy._   Then even with that consideration, she was fairly sure that Quatre’s writing would likely _still_ have been elegant.  Her money was on Heero. 

            “I’m opening it,” she yelled.  “Everyone clear?” 

            “Wait,” Ahmad called back.  A minute later, from a greater distance, he assured, “Clear!” 

            She punched the universal release and balanced on the skeleton cap as the shell cracked and flowered open into a collapse on all sides.  Directing her flashlight down, she could make out at least twelve massive crates, industrial grade, but not much beyond that.  Her men were running back her way, curious to see what this mystery shipment was, as she gripped the base of her flashlight between her teeth and began to carefully maneuver down the central pole she was standing on.  This was one of the more nicely designed capsules, from what she could tell… and far from the idiot-proof kind.  That meant high grade – better than the usual supplier sort that was designed to maintain a seal against hard vacuum and be ready to almost crumble apart by the time it hit dirt, as they weren’t really designed for atmospheric fall.  The fact that they _could_ had only made them more useful than anticipated after their original uses were over with. 

            The crate she landed on had a Barton Foundation insignia boldly stamped into the metal. 

            Lucrezia considered that for a moment, guessing as to the contents, before shrugging and tumbling the rest of the way down to the ground.  The boys had just gotten the first crate open one of them gasped.  “General?” 

            She was already sprinting and was directing her light on the object almost before he’d finished calling for her… and resisted the urge to gape disbelievingly.  “Get it out,” she urged, backing up to allow them more room.  “Let’s make sure before we get too far ahead of ourselves – the cases might just be reused.”  But as they moved to obey her she was thinking how it was the right size, that there were no shifting sounds as they levered the casing out, the case itself was stamped just as clearly with the Barton Foundation insignia and _sealed against vacuum_ … that there were _seven_ more identical cases still in the crate… 

            Neil let out a sigh of reverence, obviously resisting the urge to run his hands over the components.  “This is legit,” he breathed.  “Never used, never _opened_ …”  He looked up at her with wide eyes as she knelt down next to him to stare herself… then jump back to her feet and spin on heel when she heard a commotion from the next crate over. 

            Apparently they’d started on opening the next one while she was busy gawping.  “What is it?” 

            Geoff laughed a little incredulously.  “Well, I’m not _perfectly_ sure yet…  But this might make more sense to you than me.  Catch.”  Reflexively, she caught the object he threw at her… then blinked at the… toy. 

            …A little pink plastic toy pony with a lavender mane and tail and some sort of raincloud design printed on its ass. 

            She managed to keep a straight face for all of three seconds before she started to laugh herself hoarse.  _Oh **hell** …  And I told him to, didn’t I?_ 

            “Um… General?” 

            She held up a hand for him to wait – incidentally, the hand holding the damn _pink pony_ – trying to collect herself… and ultimately failing. 

            “Lucrezia?” 

            She managed to meet Ahmad’s eyes about the same time they started to tear and had to wipe at them, but managed to get her voice back somewhat.  Clearing her throat, she admitted, “When I told Yuy I wanted artillery shells and a damn _pony_ , I didn’t think he’d take me seriously.” 

            “Yuy?” someone asked in surprise. 

            Geoff started snickering himself.  “ _Yuy_?” 

            “Apparently he managed to find himself a sense of humor over the past two years,” she agreed.  “Shit…”  She started laughing again, though not quite so hard.  “I asked him if he knew where to find any damn fuel cells for Heavyarms and he just said something about security on them being hell, I didn’t think he’d just…”  But really, Heero _had_ always delivered, hadn’t he?  Covering her face with one hand for a moment, Lucrezia took a deep breath and shook her head.  “I think he took my sentiments a little too literally.” 

            “I think I might be inclined to agree,” Ahmad noted, amusement creeping into his own voice.  “Though next time you might tell him in advance how to properly go through our channels.  He might find the security less… rigorous, than with his own version.” 

            …He _had_ just dropped a capsule all by himself, somehow.  **_How_** _do you drop one of these at the right angle for a perfect trajectory entirely on your own?_   Not even going into how he _got_ the fuel cells in the first place, but- 

            “General?”  Geoff called, sounding even more deeply amused.  “Looks like this crate’s all artillery shells specially designed for the original Heavyarms model.” 

            …And there just wasn’t much to say to that either.  After a moment she pulled out her phone, then made a disgusted noise as she tucked it back into her pocket.  “Load it all up; we’ll take a closer look once we’ve got it home.  As soon as I’ve got a signal I’m calling the jackass and demanding to know how the hell he pulled this off.” 

            “Don’t forget this!” Ahmad reminded her brightly, handing her back the little pony doll she’d thoughtlessly passed him to pull out her cell. 

            “Oh yeah,” she snorted as she snatched it out of his grip.  “Can’t forget _that_ , he probably bought it special for me and everything.  I’m pretty sure he only _stole_ the rest of it from God knows where…  Knowing Heero, the going to the store probably took more effort.” 

            “Likely enough.” 

            She snorted again.  “I’ll remember to ask for something cooler next time.” 

            “A sound idea.” 

            Lucrezia growled and halfheartedly threw the doll back at her friend in place of a retort, to which he caught it and maintained his broad smile… and she decided to just give up.  Walking back over to him, she snatched her damn pony back and went to tuck it into her duffel so she could help her men load everything. 

            She’d finish working out how to react after the work was done with. 

-

***

-

**May 23 rd 198 – Friday – Hortobágy, Hungary**

            “The inn’s got their reservations correctly; after the last place I walked through and checked myself,” Sergeant Recine told her as soon as she opened her phone.  “They offered to include breakfast while the techs are here at a flat rate discount to you, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.” 

            “Ask if they’ll keep the offer in mind for another three days; that’s the next time I’m scheduled to talk with the program director,” Relena returned quickly, long used to the question after the last week.  “I’m not sure how wide their palates are, and if they’re going to look at us like we’re crazy for wanting to eat something other than rice for breakfast, I don’t want to put money down on it.”  Tilting her head to one side to hold the phone against her shoulder, she jotted down the note that the question had been asked again.  “They have an indoor pool, right?” 

            “And both hot and dry saunas,” he affirmed.  “I’m told this is a major tourist thoroughfare.” 

            “It used to be,” she agreed.  “I don’t know about lately, but they’re more than welcome to try for it.  See if it’s anything extra for them to have access to those.  These people are going to be working long hours on their feet or with their backs bent and necks craned; I’m sure they’d appreciate a few luxuries.”  She focused on the approaching officials she needed to talk to and added, “Text me the number, I think I might be in the middle of something in a moment…  I can type a yes or no one-handed.” 

            From the tone of his voice, her new bodyguard was smiling.  “Yes ma’am.” 

            “I appreciate cheekiness,” she noted in amusement as she hung up.  Focusing on the people now in front of her she smiled, even while in the back of her head she was noting that Jake was only three paces away, on the phone himself… but his body language was such that he could move at a moment’s notice. 

            She hadn’t decided yet if she appreciated how contagious his paranoia was.  She liked being sure of everything around her, enjoyed the easy confidence she had earned in respect to how fast she could and _would_ respond to a threat, but some days it seemed terribly ridiculous.  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” 

            “Er…” 

            “We didn’t hit our quota outlined last fall,” the second man announced without preamble, in sharp contrast to his partner.  “The winter wheat crop didn’t turn out well, whether because of the amplifiers, the soil, or our people being unfamiliar with the plant, we’re unsure.” 

            Relena nodded curtly.  “That’s actually been true of most areas, and it’s one of the things the technicians are going to be looking into – trying to see what the underlying problem has been.  Winter use was never fully approved, we just thought it would be best to try anyhow.”  She glanced over at Jake and the leather bag full of all the official files for this town he had slung over one shoulder.  He caught her eyes and nodded slightly, even as his lips started to move in response to whoever he was on the phone with; likely trying to wrap it up.  “Do you have the numbers with you, or would we need to go to your office?” 

            The more nervous of the two blinked in seeming surprise.  “Oh, in the car…” 

            Jake snapped his phone shut and took the few brisk steps towards them.  “You’re not scheduled to check out the school for another hour; if you keep Recine playing errand boy and send him to check on the roads, we can have Lin work out the other hospitality requests, so you’re clear to do this now.” 

            She frowned.  Lincoln she knew could handle the more delicate or opinion-based work without her input and get it done in more or less the manner she would prefer, but she barely knew Vaughn Recine at this point.  “If you think Recine can get it done.” 

            “It’s actually more of his kind of thing than anything else we’ve had him do so far,” her bodyguard returned with a shrug.  “Honestly, if he can’t, I’m letting him go and finding someone else – his experience with cars and working with the Department of Transportation was the deciding factor for taking him.” 

            “Oh, _he’s_ the one you were reading those reports about,” Relena exclaimed, the pieces clicking together.  Turning to smile apologetically at the two men, she explained, “Nearly half my staff is new right now, I’m afraid.  I lost them to recruitment for the Anti-Anarchy and Terrorist Strike Force, and I’m still filling in the gaps.”  The nervous man looked a bit more nervous – probably at the implied skill level required of her staff in that statement – but she was flicking her phone back open in response to a text, and hitting the call button a moment later.  As soon as Vaughn said hello, she ordered, “Go ahead and do it.  When you’re done, I need you to check for transportation for the technicians, make sure everything’s in line there, and check out road conditions.  If there’s any work that needs to be done to make them perfectly safe, we’ve only got three days to fix it.  If you’re not sure about how urgent something is, rank it so we can decide on priorities when we’ve got everything laid out in front of me.” 

            “Got it,” the sergeant agreed quickly, followed by his muffled voice telling someone to go ahead and add that to the final papers.  “Anything else?” 

            “If you need any more detail or instructions, call Colonel Miller’s cell.  Go ahead and text him once you have an idea of how long this might take you to get done so we can keep a running timetable estimate between everyone.”  She checked her watch.  “Go ahead and find yourself lunch before you get out in the middle of nowhere; we’ll probably eat while you’re gone.” 

            “Yes, Ma’am.” 

            “Take care of yourself,” she reminded.  “There’s a reason we’re checking the roads, and I’ve read your record, I just found out.” 

            He _laughed_.  “I was wondering if you’d connected that…  And I’ll be careful, thank-you, Miss Peacecraft.” 

            “Darlian-Peacecraft,” she corrected.  “If that’s too much of a mouthful, just use my first name.” 

            “Yes, Ma’am, sorry about that.”  He seemed to consider something for a moment.  “I’ll tell the colonel if it’s otherwise, but I probably won’t be done until after four.” 

            “Thank-you.  I’ll see you sometime after four then.  Bye.”  She hung up and looked back to… the one man standing in front of her.  The calmer of the two offered her a smile, and gestured back towards the entrance to the building.  “He’s getting the papers.  Sorry for the gawking…  If it wasn’t terribly obvious, I feel the need to note that he’s new.” 

            Relena laughed at that, reaching out a hand to shake.  “I _thought_ I remembered your face from the last time I came through here, but I’m afraid I don’t remember your name at the moment.  And it’s fine.”  She winked.  “I get that kind of reaction quite often.” 

            He chuckled as he took her hand.  “I imagine you do.  Ted Carson, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft.” 

            “Oh, you’re either observant or have a good memory,” she returned cheerfully.  “I like that.” 

-

***

-

**May 24 th 198 – Saturday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah**

            “Yeah…  I really wouldn’t recommend it as a winter vacation home.” 

            Colonel David Mitchell turned to give the other man a disbelieving sort of smile, honestly more grateful than anything that the… _prisoner_ had managed to maintain his sense of humor somehow.  “Are you sure?” he asked in a low tone, so as not to have the words spread far if it was somehow a joke in bad taste.  A lot of the time, what was funny from someone five steps beyond jaded was utterly unacceptable coming from someone who hadn’t lived through the same misfortune. 

            To his relief, the man snorted.  “Well, only if you installed a swamp cooler.”  He chuckled a little disbelievingly himself.  “I can’t even _remember_ what air conditioning feels like anymore…”  His brown eyes turned more serious.  “With this… we could go home?” 

            _Straight to the heart of it._   And really, that was what David preferred.  “Yes, as the area is neutralized.” 

            “You’re leaving things out just to lead me into asking more questions,” Charel – the man’s first name was something with an r that Mitchell couldn’t remember –  returned quickly.  “None of us want to be here; none of us _ever_ did.  I was vacationing with my girlfriend in Cairo, where it was still warm, when our hotel was gassed.  Cambyses rarely take women to quarantine; I can only hope she died quickly, but to be honest, I doubt it.”  His voice gained steel as he finished speaking, his eyes narrowing.  “They starve the ones who refuse to fight, monsieur – and that rule only applies as long as you survive your cellmates long enough to catch notice.  There was never any choice.” 

            David closed his eyes briefly as he felt his chest constrict.  He’d more or less known that, but it was something else to hear it stated so simply, point blank.  This was what made this area so hard to even begin cleaning up, but the fact was, it couldn’t _all_ be ignored.  “I won’t pretend to understand, but it’s also obvious that the brainwashing _has_ worked on a great number of men,” he muttered in return, focusing on meeting those burning brown eyes.  “I’ve confirmed that I can offer amnesty to those who help us fight Cambyses down, but anything else is in flux right now.” 

            Someone standing several yards away, near the small bonfire that had been set up before he and his men arrived, caught his attention.  Tall, probably over six foot, the man was staring at them now…  The relief cast by the firelight gave his eyes and fair hair an eerie sort of glow.  There was something almost dissecting about that stare... 

            But then, everyone looked creepy by candlelight. 

            “Only if we fight?” the squad leader protested, drawing his attention back.  “ _That_ is vague.  How much fighting?  For how long?  We have been under suspicion for nearly a year now!  Roshan is only looking for a reason to have us killed.  Even this far east, it could take over a month to leave Africa, hiding from raids the entire way.  That’s what we have been _trying_ to gain the resources to do!” 

            It was a relief when a shorter man came up then, giving Mitchell a moment to regather himself after that dark sneer.  “We’re still good,” he muttered quietly.  “Perimeter’s empty as can be… they probably didn’t think it was out of character for us to draw this far out after we had people come though here last week.” 

            The leader rolled his eyes, gripping at his blonde ponytail in a stressed sort of gesture.  “Good… at least the territorial part of the reputation still runs that far.” 

            The younger shrugged.  “Reputation’s never been an issue.”  He focused on Mitchell warily, but still with curiosity.  “Are we…” 

            Again, that stressed sort of body gesture, tugging hard on his hair.  “I’m working on it.” 

            Mitchell’s heart skipped a beat as he really _looked_ at the newcomer, saw him clear in the face.  “How old are you?” he demanded in a whisper, wanting to be wrong more than he could even _imagine_ thinking… 

            The blonde over by the fire shifted a little abruptly, but it wasn’t him that the colonel was paying attention to. 

            The teenager blinked.  “What day is it?” 

            Mitchell licked his lips, trying to keep his belief suspended…  “May twenty-fourth.”  After a moment, he added, “198.” 

            Another slow blink, then a shrug.  “Thirteen, then.” 

            _Oh **God**._  

            Charel shifted to ruffle the boy’s hair.  “You needed the date?” he mumbled worriedly. 

            Another blink and shrug.  “Last week, I guess…  May nineteenth.  I didn’t think about it.” 

            The man hummed deep in his throat, a sort of understanding, before gesturing towards the man by the fire.  “Go make sure he didn’t just hear something.” 

            “I saw too,” the boy agreed, trotting off. 

            Silence hung between them for a long moment afterwards, before Charel offered, “Cory’s been here longer than I have.  I’m not sure how he made it before us, but… if he’s right about his age…”  He sighed.  “I don’t _think_ he’s been here for a full two years, but it’s been at least fifteen months.  He doesn’t like to think about it, though, so I haven’t asked.”  The one by the fire gestured at him and Charel nodded, relaxing slightly… before focusing back on Mitchell, eyes tired but hard.  “Does _he_ have to fight for your Regime to be free too?” 

            David’s heart just sunk deep into his stomach again as the negotiations actually started. 

-

***

-

**May 26 th 198 – Monday – Near L3**

            “Hey, Mom.  You got my email, right?  Yeah, sorry about that, it was totally my fault…  Well, no.  Okay, it was _mostly_ my fault, Odin was the one who decided that not letting me have a phone until I worked out the kinks was good motivation.”  A pause.  “Um, no, not really…  But…  Well, I _did_ work it out better than I’d been thinking…” 

            Odin shook his head slightly as he slid the faceplate of the phone open and started punching in the preliminary codes for Earth.  If he’d had any idea how long it would take Marlé to work out her little program and device, he would have gotten at least _one_ new phone for stand-by purposes, but by the time he’d realized that the situation might become nearly as obnoxious to him as her, he’d gone too far with it to turn back.  He thought he had done rather well, giving into his frustration in a sort of objective lesson for his… his _sister_ that she would learn well from without actually suffering anything, but…

            He hadn’t expected her to take another five days to make something _functional_. 

            In retrospect, he could admit that allowing her to conveniently destroy their second phone in retaliation may have been childish.  But then, she had to learn a few principles somehow, and the best way was to let her make the mistakes – provided they were sufficiently low risk. 

            Frowning as he dialed Noin’s number, he paused before hitting send.  It _had_ been five days since the drop…  And while he had never perceived Noin as anything approaching temperamental, that was still rather… _brusque_ of him. 

            …Leia was invading his vocabulary more and more as time went on.  Pressing send, he glanced back over to the twelve-year-old, still talking to her mother in a wheedling tone.  _Did I pick up any of Duo or Quatre’s speech patterns while we were together?_   Probably… 

            If he had, it hadn’t bothered him. 

            “Who is this?” Noin demanded as she picked up. 

            “Heero.”  The name – if not the spelling – was common enough that that shouldn’t suggest anything if the line was randomly scanned. 

            “Oh good, it took you long enough,” her tone relaxed, though it turned sarcastic.  “Did you forget you switched phones?” 

            “No.  You got-” he scanned his mind for a good word, quickly, “-your present, right?” 

            “Oh, I did… you had us worried until I saw your scribbling.  That was a nice job, by the way; for a hacksaw.” 

            “I didn’t have a hacksaw,” he returned mildly. 

            She made an amused sort of noise.  “In any case, yes, I _did_ appreciate it… though if the same idea crosses your mind again, some warning would be nice.  I’m not a fan of surprises.” 

            “Noted.” 

            “Where did you find all that, anyway?” 

            “I raided an old friend’s stash spot,” Odin explained.  “I honestly doubt he even still remembers it was there, but he seems to like you well enough.”  He felt his lips twitch.  “He gave you his boat, after all.” 

            Noin chuckled.  “I’ll admit that that was bad phrasing on my part, but I was half asleep.”  She paused for a moment before adding, “I wasn’t exactly serious about the horse, by the way.” 

            He smiled outright, glancing back in Marlé’s direction.  “I didn’t think you were.”  But he’d been at a total loss for what it _did_ mean and had had to ask Marlé to explain it, at which point she had insisted that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.  “I apologize for the phone trouble, however.”  Normally he thought he would have left it at that, but after a moment of silence on the other end, he felt the urge to add, “It caught fire.” 

            She made a noise that he suspected was a smothered chuckle.  “It caught fire?” 

            “Yes.” 

            “How, exactly, did it manage to catch fire?” 

            He met Marlé’s eyes when he glanced her way this time, and rolled his own.  “It might have been thrown at my not-hacksaw.” 

            “I did _not_ throw it!” Marlé protested immediately, and rather loudly. 

            “Hence the word ‘might’,” he retorted, sure that Noin had heard the girl clearly.  “I still found myself dodging a projectile while holding an instrument that could etch neo-titanium.” 

            “It was an _accident_!” 

            “Which is a far more frightening concept altogether.”  Considering the soft laughter coming through the phone, he debated for a moment before deciding it couldn’t hurt to ask the more experienced.  “Is there anything worth teaching beyond practice for zero-g?” 

            “They work out most of the kinks after the first few incidents,” she noted in an amused tone.  “I never had more than a handful of injuries in a group.  It sounds as though she’s already discovered the most dangerous aspect, in any case.”  He made a noise of understanding, and he supposed he heard half a hesitation before she asked, “How did you learn?” 

            He shrugged, shifting his weight and pushing off against the wall slightly to put himself into a slow spin.  Marlé had asked him the same question.  “I don’t recall it ever being a new concept.”  The instincts for working in zero gravity environments were as deeply ingrained as those for walking. 

            “Mm.”  She sighed out another chuckle.  “Is this the person who texted you before?” 

            “Marlé, yes.” 

            “So doesn’t _she_ have a phone?” 

            “I might have neglected to point out that she left it on top of the capsule after the fire.” 

            “He was being impossible,” Marlé protested, tucking her new phone into her pocket as she gently pushed off to come closer to him.  “He’s good at that – in just about any context.” 

            Odin blinked, considering… remembered Sally specifically asking him to turn off the New Edwards self-destruct simply _because_ she had said it was impossible.  “Agreed.” 

            “See?” 

            Noin laughed outright.  “I’ve noticed.” 

-

***

-

**May 28 th 198 – Wednesday – Cremona, Italy**

            “Mailin Marakesh,” the Asian woman – well, mostly Asian, probably – greeted easily.  Her accent was odd, though familiar enough that Relena knew she ought to know it.  “It’s a pleasure to know I’ll be working with you, ma’am.” 

            “Just Relena, please,” the princess returned, taking her hand to shake.  “And I’m looking forward to it.  It will be nice to have another woman to talk to.” 

            In all honesty, she was reeling in that she now had a _female_ bodyguard – then recoiling at the fact that she _was_ reeling for that exact reason.  She just hadn’t _thought_ about it… but she’d never questioned that Jake was only staffing men. 

            At least until now, of course.  And she _knew_ it was a matter of him picking the people he thought were best suited, and that until now it just happened out that all of them had been men…  But _wow_ , it was so beyond terrible of her to be thrown by him hiring a woman.  With Jake, it just meant that he’d finally found a woman who met his standard…  and statistically speaking, far fewer women were going to make it onto his radar, that was all. 

            Hopefully she wasn’t blushing from the sheer level of embarrassment she was keeping carefully inside her own head. 

            Mailin was smiling conspiratorially.  “That so?  Tired of all the eye candy about?”  She gestured negligently in the direction of the table, where Lin and Jake were debating the best way to do something or other. 

            Relena snorted.  “Most certainly not, but it’s been a while since I’ve had genuine, trustworthy women nearby.”  She sighed a little nostalgically.  “The boys are great, but I do miss Noin.  She was all power, poise, and grace.” 

            The woman pursed her lips.  “The Colonel said Dorothy Catalonia was often about?” 

            Relena snorted.  “You can figure that one out when you meet her.” 

            “Oh… dear.”  Mailin’s lips were twitching slightly.  “That sounds terribly interesting.” 

            “That’s one way of putting it.”  Tucking her hair behind one ear, the princess considered the little kitchen they currently found themselves in.  “Did he say whether he was putting you on day or night shift to start with?  He’s passed me so many folders at this point that I honestly can’t remember what details belonged to who anymore.”  That, and people in full military uniform, staring at the camera with stoic expressions usually didn’t look much like themselves.  On top of that, Miss Marakesh had arrived at today’s cubbyhole – _excuse me, **safehouse**_ – in casual dress to make her introductions.  Jake had already mentioned that she wouldn’t be starting formally until next week, but she had arrived earlier so as to get a scope of things before fitting in. 

            …Which most likely meant she _was_ day crew, come to think of it. 

            “Ah, I might have been a bit abrupt, then,” Mailin returned with a smile.  The accent of the word ‘bit’ was odd.  “I’ll try again, ah?  I’m Major Mailin Marakesh, and I specialize in languages, among other things; your colonel’s made it rather clear that he has no desire to try to learn Mandarin in two weeks.” 

            Relena grinned at that.  “I remember now.”  There had only been three original candidates out of thirty-five or so above the rank of lieutenant, all three majors…  and only one of them with an emphasis on languages.  _And that would explain the hints of an accent._   “Australian, right?” 

            _The higher rank would make sense too,_ the candid voice in the back of her head muttered.  _In terms of Jake hiring a woman._  

            She was never going to live this down, even though no one else was _ever_ going to find out.  _All that matters is that she **is** capable, and **has** proven herself through experience and rank._  

            “Give or take,” she returned with a shrug.  “I managed to live just about everywhere, growing up; immersion’s a great teacher, really.”  She shifted her weight, eyes focusing on her with a sort of intent curiosity.  “Chance had it that I went into the reserves shortly before the World Nation was declared, and only just came back in.  Nothing against you or anything, but I’m glad, despite the circumstances, that Milliardo Peacecraft dissolved it with the rise of the Regime.” 

            “The World Nation was a madhouse idea of Duke Dermail’s that I was manipulated into conceding to,” Relena explained firmly.  “The leadership of it was pushed on me as part of the conditions of my country’s surrender, and wrestling back out of the role Dermail was trying to puppet me into took quite some doing.  I’m not sure I agree with all my brother’s solutions, but I believe it’s an improvement to trying to oversimplify all peoples for the sake of an aristocracy’s convenience.” 

            Mailin was smirking a little now, arms casually crossed over her chest.  “Bravo,” she drawled happily.  “I’d more or less figured, but it’s nice to hear from the source, as be.”  She tilted her head slightly.  “You’re not getting on as well with your brother now?” 

            Relena raised her brows; that was a nice, cut to the point question.  “No, I’m moving to Munich because I want to devote all my free time to sitting at his feet, looking pretty.” 

            The major laughed delightedly, her eyes sparkling.  “Right then, I deserved that.”  After a moment, she looked around the kitchen too, almost as if trying to see what about it had caught Relena’s attention before.  “When are you planning on doing the move itself?”   She frowned as she focused on the sink.  “Tell me that’s not your set of pots and pans.” 

            “I think those are too corroded to be safe,” Relena returned dryly.  “Jake got frustrated with Sergeant Krititz earlier and told him to go clean something.” 

            Mailin looked back to poor things skeptically.  “Well they’re obviously not clean… so where’s…”  She looked up, thinking for a moment.  “Carlisle?  Where’s Carlisle now that he ditched?” 

            “Possibly hiding from Jake.”  She hadn’t gotten even a vague sort of impression of him yet, beyond the fact that her colonel had looked like he wanted to rip the poor man’s hair out earlier. 

            “Consensus is, the damn pots are a lost cause,” Jake noted in an amused tone.  “He’s cleaning the bathroom.” 

            “What did he _do_?” 

            “He didn’t listen to what I was _saying_ because obviously he’s known me for a day and can read my thoughts,” the colonel explained dryly.  “Assumed interpretation gets people killed, so he can do menial shit until he remembers he got promoted three weeks ago because I thought he had _potential_ , not because he’s hot shit.” 

            “Ah.”  Turning back to Relena, the Australian woman shrugged.  “Makes sense to me.” 

            “That’s comforting,” Jake noted with a smirk.  “I’d hate to toss you back for lacking common sense.” 

            She chuckled.  “Common sense is malleable.  I’ve spent the last three years retired, managing a precocious pair of toddlers; I think, after that level of mischievous creativity, I can handle anything on the more sensible end.” 

            “Oh, ‘sensible’ might not be the most applicable word,” Relena found herself muttering before she thought. 

            The major barked out a laugh.  “If any of us were entirely sensible, Ma’am, we’d all be running like ninnies for the colonies.” 

            “They’re too overpopulated by now,” Lincoln added cheerfully as he came up to the kitchen’s island, rolling up something that was probably either a map or a blueprint. 

            “You checked?”  Her tone was innocently affronted. 

            “I have _some_ sensibility left,” he agreed, eyes sparkling.  “Enough at least to never work under Colonel David Mitchell.”  Jake started to outright cackle, and Lin moved around him to offer his hand.  “I was busy before, so hi, I’m Lieutenant Lincoln Sobrie.  Pleased to meet you, Major Marakesh.” 

            The brunette woman smiled easily and took his hand.  “Sure.  And if we’re going to be informal at some point, I prefer Mai.” 

            “Wonderful, we’re fast becoming the band of lazy nicknames to the point that we could possibly move as a group and already be disguised!” Lincoln went on rather exuberantly.  He was in an odd mood, at any rate.  “Lena, Thea, Spiderman-” 

            “ _What?_ ” 

            Relena started giggling hard as her lieutenant went on to ‘explain’.  “No, no sir, you’ve already been dubbed by the princess, it stands-” 

            “How did you get _Spiderman_ out of-” 

            “Lin!”  Relena protested around her own laughter.  “I didn’t mean for you to-” 

            “In any case,” Lin continued on as though none of the protests had begun, “Kansas left, but there’s still me as Lin, and Rome, Mars, now Mai, and I’ve a few creative ones in mind for the newer ones… Vaughn’s can’t have anything to do with his real name, it’s already only one syllable.” 

            Relena pressed one hand to her forehead, giggling helplessly.  Lin probably had a point, but…  _Wow._  

            “So… welcome to the madhouse,” Jake noted dryly after a moment.  “We’ll see if you can earn yourself a name as _dashing_ as _Spiderman_.” 

            Relena just found herself laughing harder. 

            “I _do_ want to know what I did to deserve that one, at some point.” 

            The princess nodded, still trying to get herself otherwise under control. 

            “…Yeah, I think we’ll get on just fine,” Mai decided after a long moment.  “I actually had my nephew convinced I was a superhero for almost a year.  He was three, but it was still seriously almost a full year.” 

            “That _has_ to count for something,” Lin agreed happily.  “Right, Jake?” 

            “I did _not_ start this one, Sobrie, it’s _all_ yours…” 

            Still not able to work up enough air to speak, Relena walked around the counter to wrap her arms around Lin, giggling into his chest. 

-

***

-

**May 29 th 198 – Thursday – L3**

            “Well, this has certainly been a lovely afternoon, Madam Victroff,” Dorothy announced with a smile, gently patting at her lips with her napkin.  “Much better than I had prepared for.” 

            The older woman smiled as well, but while still polite, it was… amused on a more visceral level, and the light in her eyes exposed the danger missing from her tone quite clearly.  “It was a pleasure to meet with you, dear.  I wasn’t expecting the company, but I could hardly leave you on the doorstep.” 

            Dorothy found herself briefly considering whether or not she might be able to safely leave the neighborhood at this point, let alone the colony; it warred with her growing genuine _like_ of this woman the more time she spent with her.  She was fairly sure, but… it had taken _such_ effort to find even a glimmer of a trace of her, and not all family was alike…  though in some ways, they truly could be. 

            Her stomach dropped at the implications of that. 

            After another moment, she carefully announced, “My initial comments were not actually meant as blackmail, Madam.” 

            “Oh good.”  Theratrice Victroff flicked her hair slightly, smiling even more charmingly as something about her made the Romefeller heiress’ sense of danger skyrocket.  “That could have led to a poor evening.” 

            Dorothy decided, as electricity seemed to run up and down her spine a few times, that she _really_ _did_ like this woman; she was all steel wrapped coyly in velvet.  “I merely had to be sure I caught your attention enough to speak with me at all, I’m afraid,” she went on to explain.  “What I actually had in mind is a prospect that would hopefully be quite mutually beneficial.  I simply came with no predisposed way to gauge your reactions.” 

            The smile widened slightly as the woman glanced towards a clock, then immediately back.  “So I’d surmised, over the past hour.  I’m willing to satisfy my curiosity…  so long as you manage to make a point before my husband returns with our daughters.  By then, I suspect we’ll have to settle at some stopping point or other.”  She took another sip of her tea before setting the cup aside entirely.  “Exactly what would depend on the situation as it stands by then, of course.” 

            Another invigorating shrill ran through all her nerves as Dorothy smiled back and leaned forward in her chair.  “Of course.  Allow me to start concisely instead of simply at the beginning, then…” 

-

***

-

**May 31 st 198 – Saturday – L4**

            It was coded. 

            Normally, that kind of thing didn’t bother him.  Codes were meant to be broken, and he honestly couldn’t remember when Odin had first started to teach him the ins and outs of computer systems and their securities.  But this wasn’t _encrypted_ , it was _coded_ , which meant it wasn’t an encryption or anything he could mathematically break down.  It was a riddle in more ways than he knew he was currently even perceiving, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with electronics beyond the fact that the scripts were on hard drives. 

            When Quatre had cheerfully informed him it was secure – after explaining that he wanted Heero to take all the original information on the Zero System and hide it where he couldn’t find it on his own – it hadn’t occurred to him that the other pilot might have taken the extra step to also be sure that no one could understand what they were looking at; if they even knew what they held in the first place. 

            …At least, he was fairly sure it had to have been Quatre.  He wouldn’t have put it beyond Dr. J or the rest of the Mad Five, but he was fairly sure that the bits of language he could make out looked like a long-extinct dialect of Arabic.  That struck him as _very_ Quatre… especially considering he was mostly sure that he had seen lines of the same script in Wing Zero’s startup sequences – but not in Wing’s.  The same mix of symbols and scrawl had also formed up all of the really deep-level coding of the machine itself… and considering the nasty shocks he’d gotten when he tried to alter any of that, he was relatively sure that the design both had traps built into it and had been made to be utterly incomprehensible to anyone _but_ Quatre. 

            The Winner heir hadn’t exactly factored in that anyone else use might use the suit when he’d been building the gundam.  Everyone who flew it afterwards had to learn to deal with its quirks… and they had all learned early on that trying to dive into Wing Zero’s base program protocol was either suicide or homicide, depending on which trap you triggered.  You had to take it as a whole or stay away from it entirely, and the only one who probably _could_ understand it, Odin was now realizing, had been Quatre – who had refused to go near the machine again. 

            No one had exactly argued with him over that decision, either; and there was a very deep wisdom in coding the only remaining knowledge in such a way so that only Heero and Quatre working together could bring the system back to life. 

            Odin frowned.  _That’s not technically accurate either, though._   Epyon was equipped with the Zero System, which meant that Treize had had access to it at least at some point.  He probably still did, as he couldn’t see the general willingly throwing away knowledge…  _But Treize also denounced mobile dolls and threw out everything to do with them, and Zero doesn’t exactly have the best track record._  

            _He said he couldn’t master the system,_ he recalled, considering.  _That he made it for himself, but he couldn’t run it, so it was worthless to him._   Unlike Wing Zero, Epyon woke up Zero during the boot sequence – he’d tried to fiddle with the BIOS a few times, but coding structure was… unusual.  Overly complex where he would expect utility, and simple with a reroute back through other blocks when it ought to be a complex, unique process.  It made certain functions flow impeccably, almost outpacing his own reflexes, even, but… Epyon had been built differently from the others.  At first glance, large segments of code _should_ have been entirely unusable… but it obviously _did_ work just fine. 

            That, more than anything, had been what made him believe Treize when he said he created the gundam independently.  The programming was intelligent, but very much amateur work too – altering any function between users on Epyon would have been a nightmare. 

            _So if Treize still has a working copy of Zero, he’s being careful to not share._   So long as that didn’t change, it wasn’t something he had to worry about. 

            Heero had started hiding the pieces of Zero that Quatre entrusted him with as soon as they had escaped to Earth and split up, and he’d been sure to be both random and widespread about it…  thirty small drives in all.  He hadn’t done it very quickly either – he’d still working on it by the time he joined Noin, Howard, and Sally on the _Peacemillion_.  He hadn’t picked them all up yet, but he was reasonably sure he’d hidden them well enough to successfully avoid any casual perusing. 

            He wondered if half of Quatre’s shock over being told he’d had Howard add Zero to Sandrock was over the idea that maybe he _hadn’t_ hidden the knowledge away as he’d promised.  After all, most of the panic had faded out once he explained it was a literal copy from Wing Zero – which was located right next to the first catalyst for the suit’s self-destruct mechanism. Even if the mechanism failed – like it had with Deathscythe – the initial sparks would still obliterate the drive carrying Zero’s code. 

            Quatre had programmed the self-destruct to literally go off in someone’s face if they tampered with Zero…  But after finding three separate lines of code connecting the drive and the self-destruct, Heero’d decided it was worth the risk – Quatre wasn’t anywhere near his own level of programming. 

            When he’d asked Howard to install Zero in Sandrock, he’d insisted on the same location – and given how Sandrock was Quatre’s baseline for how he believed MS should be set up, it hadn’t been a difficult request.  So after _Libra_ fell and they both crashed, they’d set the self-destructs on both gundams with a timer – no more Zero there.  _So Epyon is the only source now…  But…_  

            If _he_ had experienced electrical fires in Wing Zero, then it was very likely that Zechs had suffered the same in Epyon.  Depending on how far the damage spread, it was possible that Epyon’s copy was gone as well… though there may have been copies.  Treize probably wouldn’t have justified the idea of booby-trapping an MS he was literally giving away, and White Fang had to have gotten the version they used to run the Virgo doll army from somewhere.  As far as he understood, only the five scientists that built the gundams and _maybe_ Howard had the knowledge and ability to craft another version of Zero from nothing… and while he wasn’t sure who built _Libra_ in the first place, that beam cannon was too inefficient to be Dr. J’s work.  The constant breakdown and need for repairs after each shot had been incredibly helpful, but there was no reason for it to be happening when it was essentially just a bigger version of Wing Zero’s twin buster rifle. 

            In any case, _Libra_ ’s edition of Zero was incinerated along with the rest of the ship, so it didn’t really matter where it came from.  Epyon had still been clear at least for salvage after _Libra_ , which meant Treize’s version of Zero was likely still intact.  

            _The question is: was Treize’s version already corrupt when he implemented it?_  

            Treize could only have gotten Zero from either the faction who was experimenting on Wing Zero after it was taken from Quatre, or from the Mad Five when they were hidden on the Lunar base – involuntarily creating the Vayeate and Mercurius, while secretly rebuilding Deathscythe and Shenlong.  In either scenario, it was highly likely that the information was corrupt from the beginning. 

            Personally, he thought there had been something… _maddening_ about Epyon when he flew it.  _Almost like… curdled bloodlust?_   He rolled his eyes, admitting that maybe his word choices were getting _more_ eccentric.  Vocabulary aside, though… adding in unfortunate side effects to discourage use was exactly the kind of tactic he would expect from the Mad Five. 

            _…was **Libra** ’s absurdly breakable canon **purposefully** made poorly?_   To the best of his knowledge, the gundam engineers had never been released from OZ custody even after the Lunar base fell, but…  That sounded like something they’d _do_ , keeping up the charade of playing ball while sabotaging the entire system. 

            _I guess I’ll never know for sure._   If they’d been on _Libra_ when it fell, then that was that.  If they were somewhere else, then they were smart enough to know better than to make problems for him, so he couldn’t really care less. 

            Turning his attention back to the compilation of data he’d found on a few of the drives Quatre had given him so long ago, he had to admit defeat.  Despite trying for a handful of weeks now, he couldn’t make it make anything approaching sense; he only had about half of the drives so far, but if they were all like this?  Having them all wasn’t going to help – he needed Quatre in order to decipher it.  There was a chance that the Maguanacs would know, but the longer he thought about it, the more he worried about those tricks that had been in the working version on Wing Zero.  It wouldn’t be out of character for Quatre to have trapped his own failsafe any more than it would for Dr. J.  His old friend had designed this so that only both of them together, live and fully willing, could revive the thing that had led him on a mass-murdering spree. 

            Despite this being an excellent plan, it was incredibly frustrating when one considered how long the other pilot had been missing, and how he was possibly dead. 

            Closing his laptop and leaning back in his chair, he turned to see Marlé entirely focused on the book she was reading.  Leia had been pestering them about when they might be back next, and he supposed they might as well go back and visit for a while, before heading back to Earth to give Sally the bad news.  Once back in Africa, he could try enlisting the Maguanacs’ help with Quatre’s cipher.  After that… Well, he wanted to push how fluently Marlé could manage her German… and there was always something else to do as soon as they finished one thing. 

            It would be easier to just go now, but… Leia and Mariemaia had been apart from each other almost their entirely lives, when neither of them had wanted to be.  Despite the mutters in the back of his head about wasting time and decreased efficiency, of how superfluous he’d allowed himself to become… he respected that.  The mother and daughter were innocent in all this, and protecting that innocence was why he had agreed to abandon the original Operation Meteor when Dr. J suggested it.  The innocence of that girl and her puppy that he still felt guilty for killing in collateral, of the pacifists he had unknowingly slaughtered at New Edwards, that Relena seemed to exude no matter how dark the hour…  That was the point of all this.  He hadn’t exactly been innocent when Odin died but even then, that… that _purity_ was still there…  

            He liked to think he might have followed a better path, if his father hadn’t died.  If he hadn’t found himself blindly going wherever his feet led him – if he’d thought about it at _all_ , instead of falling right into the Barton Foundation’s hands. 

            _Odin said he wanted a better life for me._   And for all that he didn’t and never had wanted ‘normal’ the way his father had pushed him towards, it… it could have gone a lot better than what Dr. J and Dekim had put him through.  He couldn’t really regret it, it had been so long, but…  He thought he understood now, at least a little better, what Odin had meant that day. 

            Life was too cheap – the same with time.  If he could keep Mariemaia safe _and_ give her more time with her mother, he would – he wished he’d had more time with his father.  _You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow… the only thing you know for sure is that everything will change, whether it’s all at once, or in pieces so small you didn’t notice for months._

 _She has her mom now… she shouldn’t waste it._  

            He pulled his phone out of his pocket with the intention of calling Leia to say she could expect them in a day or so, only to see “Lu” at the top of his recently called list.  She’d programmed it into his first phone that way, so he had recopied it that way himself… though he wondered if it was to help mask her identity should the phone fall into the wrong hands, or if that was what she used now.  After all, Sally had never gone by “Po”, but he’d never been curious enough to ask why everyone used Noin instead of Lucrezia.  He was hardly one to fuss with what name someone was using at any particular time – he was known to respond to numbers, after all, and he’d gotten the impression that most people considered that to be fairly demeaning. 

            _I should ask if there’s anything else she needed from space._   Or if she wanted whatever else he could find in Trowa’s other various stash spots that was related to Heavyarms.  He’d only visited the ones he’d been closest to at the time, and they’d had a lot more than he thought she might expect, so he’d left it at that… but it might be worth sorting through the others he knew of in space before returning to Earth, even if he didn’t take anything.  For all that he lived a pretty Spartan lifestyle, Trowa had always had something of a packrat tendency; if he found something that he thought might be useful at some point later, he pocketed it, then tucked it away somewhere so he could find it again.  It was actually watching Trowa successfully hide away and retrieve a number of things – which had inevitably been more or less perfect for what they needed at the time – that had inspired the way he hid things later in the war, then the Zero system drives. 

            He hadn’t been joking when he told Noin that Trowa probably had no idea he even had the power cores and shells.  Zero had given him something back when he flew with it, but the Trowa he’d met on _Peacemillion_ hadn’t been the Trowa who had patiently nursed him back to health then followed him around the globe.  Duo didn’t seem to notice that the post-amnesia version wouldn’t have even considered punching him in the solar plexus to pass off information, and Quatre had been so relieved to have him alive and back that he hadn’t delved into it. 

            He considered his phone for another moment before selecting ‘Lu’ and flipping the cover up so he could access the keyboard.  If Trowa showed up and called the debt at some point, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t go out of his way to make up the difference somehow – and Noin’s needs were likely more immediate by both his and Trowa’s standards. 

            _Besides, by giving her Heavyarms…_   Smirking, he glanced briefly back to Marlé.  He didn’t appreciate all of Leia’s colloquialisms, but her daughter’s were usually entertaining on some level.   _He started it._  

-

***

-

**June 2 nd 198 – Monday – Skopje, Macedonia – The Skyview – Early Morning Hours**

            “Jake?” 

            Relena woke up to the quiet call, but didn’t move more than to open her eyes.  After a moment she registered that it was David’s voice…  And she pushed herself up on one elbow.  “Dave?”  He wasn’t supposed to be in the same town as them, she was positive.  Jake was sitting up too from his bed, a few feet closer to the door…  David was coming through the connecting room with the rest of her guards. 

            “Sorry, Lena,” the colonel muttered, sounding half-asleep.  “I didn’t mean to wake you up too…” 

            “What’s wrong?” Jake asked as he flicked on the lamp and scrubbed a hand over his eyes.  “I thought you were in, like… Giza.” 

            “I will be tomorrow,” his friend returned, and he sounded not so much tired, Relena realized, as… hollow.  Like he’d gone through so much emotion that he’d just poured it all out until there wasn’t anything left to be upset over.  He was still fully dressed and didn’t look rumpled physically, but you could see the exhaustion in his stance.  “I decided on a later flight time…  Can I talk to you?” 

            Jake’s mouth firmed as he nodded, reaching for his shoes.  “Sure, just let me get dressed, and we can-” 

            “I’ll just go in the other room,” Relena argued, standing up and absently brushing her hair out of her face.  “You can talk in here; I’m awake anyhow.” 

            David Mitchell sighed and sat down on the bed next to his best friend.  “Thanks, Lena.” 

            “It’s not a problem,” Relena assured him, walking through the connecting door and closing it behind her… and smiling at Cassidy.  “Hey, you.” 

            Her ex-bodyguard smiled wanly back at her.  “Hey, Lena.” 

            She frowned slightly, then covered it with the same sort of tired smile.  “It’s that bad, huh?”  Whatever was bringing David down had Cassidy too…  Which probably meant it was work-related. 

            He sighed.  “Pretty much.  Mitchell’s taking the emotional brunt of it the worst, though…  I think he needs Jake to reassure him that he’s not Satan incarnate for having to hold his ground on this one.” 

            She sighed.  “He’ll set him right, I’m sure.”  From what she knew about the Cambyses situation, it was far more than simply ‘complicated’ both on a logistical and a moral level.  Cassidy probably didn’t want to talk about it though, and she didn’t particularly need the nightmares unless he _did_ need someone to talk to himself… and if that was the case, he’d redirect the conversation back to it.  Instead, she pulled him into a hug and sat down on one of the couches of the suite the night guards were sprawled around.  “How’s your hand?” 

            He smiled as he leaned back into the cushions himself, holding up the scarred appendage for her to see, flexing it.  “Still weak, but good… definitely no permanent damage, beyond the scars.  The docs said that so long as I keep up with the physical therapy, those shouldn’t become a problem either, but there’s still a chance I’ll have to let them work on it again eventually.  Shouldn’t be for a few more years, though.” 

            “That’s good.”  Considering how horrible it had looked that day in Amsterdam, she had worried it would always be debilitating, or that he might lose it entirely… but despite Doctor J’s Captain Hook routine, medicine had come a long way.  Taking his hand in hers and running her fingers gently over the lines, she looked up and winked at him.  “You impress anyone with how wicked this looks yet?” 

            He grinned back at her.  “All the time.  No girls yet, though.” 

            She snickered.  “Well, I get to be the first, then.”  Carefully blanking her face, she smiled her politician’s smile and in her most proper tone informed him, “This looks totally badass.” 

            He managed a straight face for about five seconds before they both started snickering. 

-

***

-

**June 3 rd 198 – Tuesday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah**

            “That’s… not so bad,” Nick muttered after a moment.  “I mean, it’s not great, but…” 

            “But it’s better than anything else we’re going to get,” Razo finished for him with a sigh.  “Honestly, it’s better than I expected.” 

            “Cory makes an effective guilt trip,” Robby tossed out carelessly, not looking up.  “The colonel let you push the envelope that much harder because he saw how young he is.” 

            “He’s genuine, though?” Razo reaffirmed, frowning.  He was more or less positive that Colonel Mitchell was being honest, but Robby’s opinions of people were always flawless. 

            And… something felt… _wrong_ , about how Robby was handling all this. 

            “He is.” 

            “…Free,” Sagan muttered after another long silence.  “We’re…  we’re really going to be free again.  Just a few more weeks…” 

            “It’s surreal,” Vaska agreed quietly, his eyes far away.  “I’m putting off telling the others until I can believe it’s really true myself.  This is…  a dream, right now.” 

            Razo licked his lips, looking to Robby, wondering why he wasn’t-

            “We’ll need to organize this,” Robby announced at last.  “Make sure everyone gets their moment of shine for the official affirmation, with minimal risks.  I’ll draw it up once we have everyone’s confirmation.” 

            And that was when everyone _else_ realized Robby was being wrong.  “Confirmation?” Nick dared first.  “Who _wouldn’t_?” 

            “Who can’t,” the blonde returned bluntly, looking off into the distance, not meeting anyone’s eyes.  “This is a good opportunity, but there are exceptions to every rule.”  He finally did look back to them, and while they all expected his eyes to be smoldering, they were really just… resigned.  “Don’t assume that just because you’ve found a solution for yourself that it will work for everyone, Nick.  I know you know better than that.” 

            Another long silence spread between them as the others tried to digest that and Razo tried to fit the pieces together again.  Finally, Razo decided he might as well step up to the plate.  “You’d lose the amnesty; they could legally hold you accountable for your time here.” 

            Robby laughed that little dark chuckle of his that tended to make a chill run up your spine, though this time, it seemed more… hopeless.  “Not if they don’t catch me.” 

            _He didn’t want to come near that colonel or his men.  He wanted to be there and to watch, but he didn’t want them to **see** him…_  

            Another pause… then out of nowhere, Cory announced, “I’m going with Robby.” 

            “No,” Robby snapped, though his voice was dry.  “They’ll take you home, it’s best.” 

            “ _You_ can take me home too,” the boy argued immediately.  “What if no one’s there anymore?  _They_ won’t care.” 

            Razo could feel the palpable disbelief of the others at Cory’s attitude… or hell, over the fact that the kid was stringing together more than three words at a time.  That Cory dared to talk back…  

            _But then, Robby isn’t keeping up his mask either._   Everyone knew he favored the boy, but they also knew Robby should have smacked Nick for questioning him – instead it was perfectly clear that their blonde leader was past caring. 

            He’d kept them all alive and as whole as he could… but he’d kept himself at a distance with a persona to do it.  And if they were going to be safe after all… then maybe the man was just _done_. 

            “Robby?” Vaska asked after a minute, when it was clear the man wasn’t going to answer Cory in any way.  The blonde shifted slightly so they knew he heard, but it was another long pause before he spoke. 

            “We’re going to be free again.  We’re going to be our _own_ again.  I got us here to start with, but follow your _own_ paths…  I’ve got to follow mine.” 

            That said, he stood and just… walked away. 

            Nick trembled slightly, staring after him even after the man had ducked into his tent.  “Did that just happen?” he asked, sounding a bit incredulous. 

            Cory frowned.  “He’s scared.” 

            “Scared?” Sagan demanded, sounding outright disbelieving. 

            “It surprised him too,” the boy admitted.  “I think he’d forgotten how.” 

            “It’s in his head then!” Nick hissed.  “It’s time to celebrate, not freak out!” 

            _He was so wary of the military men…_   Razo had taken it as the usual caution, Robby’s usual paranoia before, but…  “He doesn’t think he’ll get the amnesty,” Razo realized, looking to Cory for confirmation.  “He wanted me to negotiate it because he didn't want the soldiers to know him.” 

            “You said the amnesty was conditional only by whether we helped fight Cambyses,” Vaska returned solidly, meeting his eyes.  “Is there a loophole?” 

            “No…  No, Robby and I both were sure, made them add in extra clauses…” 

            “It won’t matter,” Cory added after a moment.  “They’re not going to care.” 

            “You picked a fine time to remember you had a mouth, why the pessimism?” Sagan asked, tone sarcastic. 

            The boy shrugged, seemingly unaffected by everyone’s attention.  “He didn’t learn everything he knows _here_.” 

            Razo closed his eyes as the significance of that one sunk home.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t known it, but when you spent long enough actively trying to _not_ think about things, it caught up with you.  “He was on bad terms with the military before Cambyses took him.  The amnesty won’t apply to anything from _before_ here.”  He looked to Nick, who was starting to look guilty.  “You feel like an ass yet?” 

            “Fuck off.” 

            “He’s probably not the only one here on not so hot terms with them either,” Razo continued, turning to stare at each of them in turn.  “And he’s right; the lack of amnesty doesn’t matter if they have no way of telling someone was here in the first place.” 

            Vaska licked his lips.  “We can showcase and run,” he announced, meeting Razo’s eyes.  “Do some good, get our amnesty, and make ourselves scarce.” 

            “Why?” Nick asked, confused. 

            “Because I’m grateful, but I don’t have any faith in the Regime.” 

            “And the alternative?” the younger man snapped. 

            “I _trust_ him!” Vaska snapped back, gesturing back towards Robby’s tent.  “He gave a damn, and looked after total strangers with his own life!  I don’t know how many times I’d be dead by now otherwise!” 

            “The soldiers weren’t so bad,” Razo muttered after a moment. 

            “No, but they still get their hands tied,” Vaska snapped.  “They have _orders_ to follow, whatever they’re like.” 

            Nick honestly just looked exhausted.  “And what do you think those things he tells you to do are?” 

            “Didn’t you just _listen_ to him a minute ago?” 

            “Stop!”  Razo snarled, holding his posture and gesturing just so, so the motion mimicked Robby enough that they all stepped back before they thought about it… then glared to follow it up.  “We’re all fucking tired, alright?  Just…  We have over two weeks before the strike starts.  Just keep it to yourselves for a few more hours and we can talk when we’re not all at the end of our damn rope.  The important thing to remember is that we have _options_ now… and that we’re not all on our own just yet.  We still have to finish actually getting there.” 

            Sagan rubbed his face with one hand.  “Well, finally there’s something I don’t have to think about to agree with.” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany**

            Hayden rocked back on his heels and cracked his back, looking the room over with satisfaction.  It was largely bare, or at least seemed like it with everything pulled away from the walls, and there were holes and bare fixtures here and there, but he couldn’t help but be proud.  _Finally done._  

            Well, he still needed to patch the holes and nail the baseboards back into place, then paint, but the hard part was done with, and Colonel Miller had only asked that he place all the security hardware and patch holes before letting others help him. 

            The fact that he’d also requested that he also break the drywall in alternate believable positions before patching hadn’t been lost on him at all… and if getting a little creative with a sledgehammer meant he had to spend more time working on his own, he had an audio book to listen to.  He liked his new superior’s thought processing; he liked to be thorough, and while more than a few people had said he was overeager or prone to overkill, Hayden still thought it paid to be thorough.  Colonel Miller was definitely paranoid, and while Hayden wouldn’t claim the same of himself, there was something in him that was thrilled to be working under someone who appreciated his ability to map labyrinths of contingency plans.  The fact that in the end it meant he was doing everything even slightly within his power to protect the princess made him practically want to _float_. 

            Even he was willing to admit he’d probably gone a few steps past overkill in a few areas of the mansion and its grounds, but the colonel had justified the plans when he laid them out for him and even added a few things, so it was all good.  Nothing like what had happened at Brussels would ever be able to happen _here_ … and he could personally assure himself of that.  And he got to do something other than just stare at screens all the time… and the colonel had said he’d start training him in other stuff once everyone was in residence.  He was still mostly going to be doing surveillance stuff, but it was of a much smaller area that was _much_ more tightly controlled and he was going to be the head of _all_ of it. 

            Which was why the colonel had left it up to him to design and construct and program this downright _masterpiece_ of safety independently, only reviewing what he had planned or tweaking or suggesting things here or there.  The man had happily told him that he was teaching him by teaching him to teach himself… which made sense in terms of what he’d _meant_ even if he was pretty sure it was _actually_ gibberish. 

            The colonel was actually really good at doing that pretty much all the time. 

            He hadn’t worked out if he should call him Miller or Jake yet; he’d seen the others call him Jake without him minding, but…  The colonel was arguably the best _and_ worst thing that had happened to his career so far.  He’d gotten into _so_ much trouble he was worried he was going to get discharged after he let the princess and her retinue out of the base lockdown, after news of the riot came back, but the colonel had immediately taken him under wing as someone he wanted to train personally.  That had effectively cut off the fires of hell before they could finish materializing, though his technical position had been on shaky grounds for a while… 

            But working directly with the princess, running all her home security and surveillance on a custom system _mostly created by him_ was a bit more than a promotion.  He hadn’t asked yet and wasn’t going to for a while – unless the colonel brought it up – but he was hardly a private anymore, with this level of trust.  He’d never really thought he might be recognized and selected like he had.  He’d known going into the military that he was probably just going to be one in the faceless masses, nothing special, but…  When he’d pointed that out in a… well, kinda panicked ramble, if he was going to be honest, the colonel had said he was probably one of the most attentive to detail enlisted he’d ever met. 

            That had been embarrassing in a proud kind of way that he’d still tried to protest before the colonel had brought up his effectiveness otherwise – in sounding the alarm during the Brussels attack once he’d woken up from his concussion, taking down the insurgent guard who had taken his position.  Something about having had the piece of mind to keep him alive and thoroughly bound – though he was given a firm look and told to never use duct tape to bandage an ally unless it was an absolute emergency – and then still man his post.  He’d gone on for a while about doing what was right instead of just mindlessly following orders, and how he thought that level of judgment was vital in his line of work – though Hayden wasn’t sure if that was referencing to the colonel, himself, or both of them. 

            He was eager to find out, though. 

            Nodding to himself, he stood up and went to get the drywall.  The sooner the patches dried, the sooner he could paint, and if he had enough time, he could paint more on his own before recruiting Catalonia’s guys to help, and increase possible levels of subterfuge; paint over both some true and some false patches so if one of them tried to give up the information later, the locations would be half wrong.  The colonel had said that he wasn’t suspicious of them, really, but also that if you thought of a layer of simple, untraceable deception that didn’t need maintenance, that the best policy was probably to just go with it. 

            …He _really_ liked working under Colonel Miller.  This was downright _brilliant_. 

-

***

-

**June 5 th 198 – Thursday – Near Tivoli, Italy**

            Relena frowned, rubbing at her arm absently.  “Mu Ackroyd?” 

            Jake buried the frown that wanted to come up; she didn’t seem to notice, but she fussed with the scar from the now old bullet wound when she was unsure of something.  It wasn’t as though it was an unusual habit to develop, but… he’d rather fucked up that night.  It wasn’t as though he thought he could have done any different or known better, or that it hadn’t taught them both a few valuable lessons too, but it had still been his fuck-up, all the same. 

            All the same, this was frustrating, and Relena was right to be suspicious – Mu had never been on any of the personnel files he sorted through.  _When Dave’s feeling better, I’m going to tear him a new one for this._  

            “Lieutenant Mu Ackroyd,” he agreed, feeling resigned over the subject at this point.  His friend had mentioned it practically in passing when he’d come to talk the other night, and it had already been irrevocably done anyway.  And David _had_ meant well, even if he was trying to drive him _mad_ anymore. 

            “Dave had her transferred to us for a Mandarin translator for us almost two weeks ago and thought I’d already seen her paperwork,” he explained.  “She was on leave and the redundant notices got rerouted somewhere with how much we were moving about.”  _And Dave probably made sure that they would have been too late for me to negate it even if the system **had** been working properly._  

            Relena’s eyes sharpened as she looked up from the file she was reading to look at him.  “You don’t approve of her?” 

            He sighed.  “I considered her at some point, and she’s a friend of Dave’s that he trusts implicitly.  She’s capable on all counts, but I _didn’t_ select her, and only found out I had an extra on my team three days ago.” 

            “So he’s stomping on your playground,” she reiterated, a smile touching her lips as her blue eyes darkened by a shade or two of grey. 

            He laughed out a sigh.  “Yes.”  He’d admitted to having territorial issues when he was _nine_ ; it wasn’t exactly worth denying over a decade later. 

            She grinned broadly back at him and flicked her eyes back to the paper in front of her, taking it in with a glance before moving to set it back down and consider her planner.  “If they’re friends, he probably pushed it because he trusts her enough to feel less guilty about not working with us anymore.” 

            “Which is understandable,” Jake allowed, “but I’m still allowed to be irritated as hell with him.” 

            “Mm.”  The mumble was amused and affirmative as she glanced back over his way.  “You’ll have to give some of that up if you like her, though.” 

            “That would be the downside of not being able to yell at him before I properly meet her,” he agreed wryly.  David _did_ know how he worked and flowed with the people around him, and wouldn’t have made an addition that would upset that. 

            In theory, that was a good thing.  In reality, that just made it all the more aggravating. 

            And it filled their day from comfortable to nearly stifling, with _another_ new face to learn and watch… 

            He had been hoping to get up the nerve to finally visit Des today, but hadn’t been willing to mention as much when David had given him the official transfer papers.  He probably would have put it off again in favor of some simple distraction, but… the possibility being removed made him want to rage about it. 

            _We’ll come back through Tivoli soon enough,_ he reminded the less rational part of his mind.  _There wasn’t really enough actual time today anyway; I was just giving myself an illusion to cop out of._  

            _I should probably tell Relena to remind me come back to visit off the clock.  She’ll hold me to it._  

            As it was, he’d been avoiding direct contact with Des for the better part of three years already; another few weeks wouldn’t hurt anything after this long. 

            And Lena was moving towards him, coffee cup in hand.  Her smile was quietly smug.  “You didn’t sleep well, did you?  Drink.” 

            If his sleep deprivation was that easy to recognize, Lena probably deserved to keep her habit of fingering her scar.  “Thank-you.” 

-

***

-

**June 10 th 198 – Tuesday – China**

            “I should get to bed,” Wufei muttered, standing up. 

            Kailì grinned at him, standing as well.  “Too true.  I need to go rip out half of what my wife packed for me out of the suitcase and replace it with identical clothes just to irritate her.” 

            Yu Zi rolled her eyes, not bothering to look up from her book.  “Mom made me pack three days ago.” 

            “She didn’t pack it _for_ you?” Kailì demanded of his daughter in mock disbelief.  “Horrible woman.” 

            “She said I was capable, and that if she didn’t give you a template to work off of, you’d never work out what identical clothing to switch out what she selected for.” 

            Yu Zi’s tone was a sarcastic drawl, delivered with a completely straight face, making Wufei grin.  The Lao family was always… interesting.  Once he’d learned to stop taking any insult at face value, they were very pleasant, and he enjoyed spending most of his evenings there. 

            He was going to miss them.  “I’ll show myself out.”  Kailì and Yu Zi needed what time they had for last minute packing – identical contents or not, Wufei had no idea and didn’t _actually_ care – and sleeping if they could manage it, to start shifting time zones. 

            _I should check that Shui hasn’t passed out on his desk again._   Just watching his graceless roommate move the next day when he’d let him sleep all night like that was painful.  Shui wasn’t the type to complain, but he wasn’t subtle or in great control of his body either.  But then, Wufei was willing to admit that very few individuals fit into his definition of having ‘great control’ over their bodies, and most of them were well versed in some type of martial art. 

            If he was going to be spending most of his time with Shui in their tiny bachelor’s flat, eating out of the cafeteria like he had before Kailì had attacked him and somehow turned it into a dinner invitation, he might as well make sure it started off well. 

            “Wufei!” 

            He stopped at the front door as Xiu Juan darted down the hall, long hair looking a little haphazard, a slip of paper in hand.  She had been laying down with Lien, he’d thought.  “Is something wrong?” 

            She held out the piece of paper in her usual imperious way, along with an envelope.  “You need to get these things from the store for dinner on Thursday; I need to start the sauce tomorrow.” 

            Wufei frowned.  _Dinner?_   “You need me to go to the store?” 

            Her eyes narrowed slightly, though she seemed amused.  “I have three children, Wufei; I’m not going to stop making dinner because I’ll only have the little ones for a few weeks.  I suppose you can bring that sloth of a hermit you live with, if it’ll make you feel better about yourself.” 

            …That was surprisingly nice and considerate, for Xiu Juan.  He pulled up the flap and glanced into the envelope; money.  Still a little surprised, he decided to take the bait and ask.  “Why don’t you go to the store?”  _Does Kailì usually do this?_  

            The woman flicked her hair, looking annoyed.  “I have no license to drive, and I have a four-year-old and no car seat even if I could.  You would have a mother carry a toddler and enough food to feed a large family for a week at the same time?”  She scowled.  “What _use_ are you anyway?” 

            _At least she hasn’t lost her charm,_ Wufei thought to himself wryly.  _Kailì would be devastated if she had._   “Is there anything else you need me to do while they’re gone?” he asked instead. 

            She smiled brilliantly at him, and actually reached out to pat his hand.  “Good boy.  Jia Li has kenpo lessons on Wednesday afternoons.” 

            And now he knew why his coworker left early on Wednesdays.  “I don’t have a car.” 

            She gave him a look like he was stupid. 

            …And he probably deserved it, knowing them as well as he did.  “Right.”  Stepping around her, he strode quickly down the hall and into the doorway of the master bedroom where Kailì had what indeed looked like utterly identical sets of clothing piled all over the bed.  Giving him a resigned look, he admitted, “I need your car keys.” 

            The older man cackled and grabbed them off the dresser before throwing them at him.  “You’re a good kid, Chang.” 

            _You’re a lousy mentor, Lao._   Aloud, he muttered, “Thank-you, I think.” 

            Kailì laughed again.  “Was there anything you wanted me to do or get for you in Europe?” 

            That… probably deserved some consideration.  “Mm.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? This seriously is my favorite chapter, I think...
> 
> \-------------------------------------------
> 
> Old note from original version of this chapter:  
> Holy shit, Lieutenant Lincoln “Lin” Sobrie is a real, fully-formed character… Believe it or not, it was only partway through this chapter that it occurred to me that he’s the only minor bodyguard that I’ve ever used the POV of. And who has been in every stupidass situation they’ve managed to get into, and I have a ton of detail on him and next to nothing on the others… How did I miss that? He was the first frickin’ bodyguard beyond Jake or Mitchell that was named too… every minor bodyguard point of view is from him, from minor shit to being freaked about Mitchell when Brussels was attacked, to seeing Relena coated in Jake’s blood… and he and Relena are totally rather good friends at this point. 
> 
> …I need to go tackle my subconscious and tell it to tell me when it’s doing shit I’m apparently too busy to notice… I’m still not too clear with how I manage to build, back up, and foreshadow stuff like that without even noticing until afterwards, when I realize it’s all perfectly lined up – beyond the fact that my subconscious still has better footwork than me, and catching up is often interesting, at least…


	5. Breaking the Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The amplifier tour and the Cambyses strike both begin - there's an unsurprising amount of politics and maneuvering involved. Relena gets to know her new staff, Adam asks for help, and Odin works on his interpersonal skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Edit: Really just grammar and flow changes here. Hope you enjoy it!

**_-_ **

**_ Breaking the Rules _ **

**_\--_ **

_Because only everything is actually meant to be broken, right?_

**_\--_ **

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**June 11 th 198 – Wednesday – Frankfurt, Germany**

            “Isn’t this… officious enough for Mr. Peacecraft to make an appearance?” Sergeant Recine whispered uneasily. 

            “I invited him,” Relena returned through a smile, not looking back to her bodyguard.  “I think he’s too officious now to be bothered with greeting a delegate from another continent.” 

            Major Marakesh hummed out an amused sound from deep in her throat, though she maintained her stance perfectly. 

            “My thoughts exactly,” Jake returned, amusement lacing his voice.  “I’m waiting to see how long it is before he realizes he signed off on that manse as a legitimate satellite base to filter selected soldiers through.” 

            “Really?” 

            “Don’t talk where others might see until you’ve learned to still your lips,” the colonel reprimanded.  “And how else would I legally staff soldiers at a permanent civilian location?” 

            “…How long _has_ it been?” Lieutenant de Leon asked hesitantly.  Relena couldn’t see him directly, but seeing as Jake hadn’t reprimanded him like he had Sergeant Krititz, she assumed he already knew how to speak subtly as well. 

            “Five weeks,” Relena returned softly. 

            The Major let out another amused hum. 

            “You should really get that looked at,” Lin told her cheerfully.  “We need a functioning translator, and that requires talking.” 

            Her responding hum to that was just as amused, though also considering. 

            “I think that means that you might have seniority for time on this job, but that you should remember she still outranks you,” Jake explained cheerfully. 

            Mai’s responding hum was just as amused as the previous ones. 

            “Time for gossip is over,” the colonel added.  “Be good and pretty for the Chinese ambassador.” 

            Relena smiled brightly as she stepped forward – Jake and Mai closely behind her, Lin and the rest a little further back.  She had dealt with the ambassador frequently enough when she had visited China just over a year ago; it was likely the reason he had been chosen to represent his country in the first place.  His English was also excellent, and for the moment, Mailin was only with them as a formality.  “Ambassador Kim, it’s an honor to welcome you to Europe.  I hope the flight was not too uncomfortable?” 

            “Miss Darlian-Peacecraft, it is I who am honored by your hospitality,” the middle-aged man returned.  “As for the flight, it went as well as these things go.” 

            “Which I believe means to imply you would like to see your accommodations, yes?” 

            Jie Kim laughed.  “I find that to be an accurate assumption, Princess.  I am afraid my people are not adjusted to the time difference.” 

            Relena smiled.  “The hotel is not far, Ambassador, though I’m afraid your technicians will have to spend a little more time crowded together on the shuttles to get there.  You are welcome to ride with my staff and I, however.” 

            “That sounds agreeable,” the man decided, bowing his head slightly.  “It would…”  He paused a moment as though looking for a word or phrase before settling on, “It would be a pleasure.  I would like to greet my people as they arrive, however…  We are all in the same hotel?” 

            Relena returned the small bow, though with a slight tilt to it so that it was reminiscent of a curtsey; Dorothy knew far too many variations of them, and had insisted on drilling at least a few into her head.  Gesturing at Vaughn to get the car, she assured, “You will all be in the same hotel today, yes, though I am afraid that in most cities you might be spread across several.  Transportation has already been arranged, as we agreed.” 

            “Ah, good.  There is a lobby we can greet them in?” 

            “Yes.”  Relena gestured towards Mai.  “If at any time you feel unsure of your wording, Major Marakesh is a member of my staff and is fluent in Mandarin; she lived in Beijing for four years as a teenager.  If she is unavailable, Lieutenant Ackroyd may also serve as a translator; she is not currently on duty, but I will be sure to introduce you.  I have also arranged to have translators on-site at all surveying locations, as well as a few traveling with each team.”  She could see the limousine approaching now – it had only been parked just out of sight. 

            “That is good.”  He looked towards the car for a moment before settling his gaze back on the princess.  “Thank-you for coming to meet us in person.  I understand you have much business to attend to.” 

            “Ambassador, I am not the type to shirk my duties for convenience.  Meeting your plane _is_ my business.” 

            “Of course, forgive me…”  He looked pleased when Mai opened the car door for him, though he paused while getting in to meet Relena’s eyes and add, “It is good to be working with you again, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft.” 

            She felt a genuine smile slip onto her face as she slid into the limo herself.  Jie Kim had actually been one of the nicest, most genuine members of the council she had negotiated with last year.  “Thank-you.  I could say the same of you.” 

-

***

 

**June 13 th 198 – Friday – Valencia, Spain**

            “I’m sorry, but this?”  Auda shook his head.  “This is a cipher, with Arabic lettering so old that I’m not sure anyone uses it anymore.  I thought perhaps I could help, but this…” 

            “Is something Quatre made so that only he could read it.” 

            “Yes, definitely,” the Maguanac agreed.  “Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it.  You’re sure Master Quatre wrote this?” 

            Odin shrugged.  “He gave it to me like this, and I doubt he trusted anyone else to act as a translator.” 

            “Ah, yes… that is true.” 

            Hitting a wall, even if you were expecting it, didn’t make it any less frustrating.  Odin hadn’t really staked any value on the Maguanacs being able to work through Quatre’s code, but it had been worth a try.  And it was probably worth something to know that it wasn’t just half Arabic code:

              It was half ancient Arabic _gibberish_ and code. 

            “Do you know if he might have left something else with you that he programmed himself?” he asked instead.  There was a possibility he could reverse engineer it; for all the steps of precaution the blonde strategist had taken before, it wouldn’t be unlike him to have a back-up plan in place, if someone knew where to find a Rosetta stone for his pieces of Zero. 

            The older man paused and seemed to consider that for a moment, before shaking his head.  “I’m sorry, Heero, but I don’t know.  If anyone did, it would be Rashid, but he has been out of touch for a little over two months now.  He was spotted in Cabat, and now there are wanted posters for him again and he had to hide.”  Auda’s smile was rueful.  “He’s a very distinctive-looking man, unfortunately.  He’s had little luck finding transport by sea or air, and no one is willing to risk land transport through most of Algeria, Libya and Egypt, and a good chunk of the Sudan as well, due to the Cambyses.” 

            He fingered his chin.  “I wonder if the government is only finally getting around to taking care of them now because they’ve almost completely shut down the land trade routes – through Morocco and Yemen are the only reliable ways, and the raids into Morocco have gotten as deep into the country as Fès, I understand.  The coastal and more central and south areas of Africa have been doing reasonably well in the climate change, but they’ve been suffering from northern raids and all else that has become the usual, now.  ”  He leaned back in his chair.  “We have families as far south as Congo, but while it’s still reasonably warm on that continent, the changes themselves have been even more harsh on the people.  Daily life is…”  He shrugged again.  “It’s simply not what it used to be.  Being unable to help our own people… it’s nearly as bad under the Regime right now as it was when we were trapped away from them in space.” 

            “For every reunion it seems like there’s another separation,” Odin noted, thinking back to Marlé… glancing back down at his phone to be sure he hadn’t missed an alert from her.  It was a depressing thought but also… one with inevitable acceptance.  He lost Quatre and gained Marlé…  Relena lost her father and gained a brother…  There was some phrase about doors that meant the same thing that someone had told him once, but he couldn’t remember the actual wording. 

            Quatre had said once that the Maguanacs were the protectors of a large cultural group of people; that their pride was based on family and dedication.  If they counted so many as family that they numbered in countries instead of bare handfuls, that was… a great deal of loss to contend with. 

            There had only been twenty-seven pacifists he had wrongly executed at New Edwards so long ago, but the guilt had haunted him endlessly… 

            It was probably a good thing he had never let himself conceptualize the actual number of innocents who had died with that little girl and her puppy, before the retraining. 

            “True, but such a depressing point of view,” Auda returned.  “It’s a blessing to reunite, and something to be sought out, but there are too many breaks in the world to hope to fill them all.  That is what I told Master Quatre, at least.”  He smiled a little sadly.  “It’s what we convince ourselves to carry on with, and it serves a good purpose.  Depression rarely gets you anywhere.” 

            Odin blinked at him.  “That’s pragmatic.” 

            Auda grinned broadly at him, winking.  “I rather thought so myself.” 

            …Odin wasn’t sure if there was a proper response to that. 

            “In any case,” Auda added as he stood, “You’ve heard your answers, and my time is running… close?”  He seemed to consider if he’d chosen the right word for a moment before shrugging it off as unimportant.  “I have my own problems to solve, and I’m sure you could better use your time.”  His expression was very pointedly jovial, so Odin supposed he meant the words the same way.  Almost flippantly, he added, “I’ll send Lucrezia your regards.” 

            That… sounded odd… but probably wasn’t.  “Thanks.” 

-

***

-

**Specific location not determined**

            _Well…_   The situation was rather bleak, if he wanted to be honest.  _This got entirely out of hand._   He could understand, but he was beginning to honestly believe that some point on the way of his route to self-actualization and helping things turn out okay in the world, he’d instead become a saint of lost causes.  Even compared to some of the utter shit he’d seen in Europe and Africa, this was… _cosmically_ bad. 

            …And that was really a very terrible pun, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking it all the same. 

            _I can’t handle this on my own._   And that, truly, Adam decided, was a first.  Perhaps his failure to find and save Mariemaia was what made him able to admit the idea now, though he liked to think he was sane enough to simply do the math on this one.  In comparison, however, he had to admit he’d done some rather _insane_ things both in and outside of his range of memory, for reasons he doubted he could really explain in either existence.  His concepts concerning odds were undeniably skewed, but he thought his abilities mostly matched them, at least. 

            But he was literally going to need maybe… three pairs of hands.  And the bodies attached to them.  Well-armed, trained bodies.  Ones that were reasonably capable of independent thought and taking care of themselves. 

            He didn’t want to involve Treize, both on principle and because if his people’s actions this far west were noticed, it could reveal the aristocrat’s status among the living, which was a poor idea altogether.  Also, he _really_ only needed two more people, but they did need to be _good_ , and he was rather sure Treize didn’t trust him well enough to just give him that on short notice. 

            …Chang Xutao owed him a favor or three, and Sally was likely of convincible, if what he remembered from _Peacemillion_ or Chang Wufei’s personality meant anything. 

            All the same, this was… going to be complicated. 

-

***

-

**June 17 th 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany**

            “Oooh,” Relena breathed, stepping out of the car and into the little courtyard around the back of the house.  The driveway past the gate was situated so that the majority of it was hidden entirely from the street, and she could see the red brick of the tall wall edging the outer rim of the property, though little of the open grounds themselves, with the inner wall fencing it off from the front.  It was huge, and really _did_ make Dorothy’s flat in the city proper look like a townhouse. 

            In her defense, roughly twenty people would be living out of hers. 

            “There are still a few cosmetic things to flesh out,” Jake noted as he stepped out himself.  “But all the functional changes are done, some minor furniture withstanding.” 

            She frowned.  “Furniture?” 

            “Some rats and other things had moved in after it was left unoccupied.  I told Captain Derusha to sort through what was already here and donate anything that looked run-down, then look to find decent alternatives.  I’m not sure how far he’s gotten on the latter part, though.” 

            Relena nodded thoughtfully, heading for the door.  That only made sense.  It was likely enough that she might hold meetings here, or at least guests on occasion, and appearances had to be maintained, at least up to a point.  She knew Jake had a good eye and taste.  Hopefully the man he’d set to mostly be in charge of her new residence did as well, and she wouldn’t end up with something so gaudy she was embarrassed to be seen near it. 

            Jake grinned as he followed her, chuckling softly.  “Though there _was_ some sort of couch thing that I just had sent over to Dorothy’s.” 

            “A couch thing, lovely,” she muttered under her breath. 

            “Brightly gilded with sky blue upholstery and gold tassels.  And cherubs carved into the frame.” 

            _…_   “Thank-you.”  Dorothy was probably thrilled, too. 

            He snickered.  “You’re welcome.”  He took two fast steps to get in front of her and pull the door open.  “I’ll give you a tour, then.” 

            The entryway area was tiled in a pale stone, and was open and well-lit… which almost had her let out a sigh of relief, despite it not being a surprise.  She had gotten used to her interior rooms in Brussels as a matter of security, but she had _missed_ windows… and despite having seen the building on the drive up, she hadn’t actively considered having them again.  _Though, in terms of security…_   She resisted the urge to go tap one; knowing Jake’s paranoia level, if all the ‘functional changes’ were complete, there was no reason to bother wondering if they were regular glass or something stronger. 

            She judged that the furniture was likely from whoever had left the estate uninhabited for so long; all nice and proper, as well as bland enough while still being tasteful for the room to suit its purpose.  The walls were all bare, with a fresh coat of pale cream paint on the walls, if the stray piece of blue tape stuck against the crown moulding was any indication.  “Anything that someone might realistically sit on I want to be sure is actually comfortable,” she decided after a moment.  Jake had been standing back, waiting for her to finish taking it all in.  “That was something I remember always hating about my mother’s sitting room.  It was pretty, but not functional enough to be welcoming.” 

            “Makes sense.” 

            “Was there art already here?” 

            “No; they took just about everything except this big sunflower one that’s in the back kitchen now.” 

            That was just as well.  She would get to decide on her own impressions, at least roughly.  She wasn’t  interested in picking and choosing like a curator – just suggestions and veto rights.  “Back kitchen?”  That implied that there was more than one… which, for a house this size made some sense, really. 

            Jake smiled, and gestured.  “We’ll get there.  This way first.” 

            They passed what was obviously a surveillance room, with a sturdier door than you generally saw indoors.  Inside were several stations for people to watch the screens plastered everywhere, but still enough space in the center for a relatively large card table.  _If there’s a threat outside, there’s room in here to plan._   The walls were painted a fairly vivid but cool tone of green, and she noticed that there seemed to be plenty of cameras inside the house as well, and more screens still that were kept dark.  Someone smiled and waved to her from his desk, and she saw footage of one of the garage doors sliding shut before she followed Jake further down the hall to… a large room that she would imagine had been a formal dining room, but was currently entirely bare.  Obviously, it hadn’t been decided what this room would be yet, and she was waiting for her friend to ask her opinion on it somehow before he opened the closet door, turned, and…  opened something. 

            Caught in the old spy manor moment of it all, she dashed after him to find him practically bouncing down a narrow staircase… into a very brightly lit cavernous space.  “Oh _wow_.” 

            He laughed and kept going down; surprisingly, it didn’t echo much.  “ _This_ was what really sold me on the place; the real estate agent didn’t even realize it was here, and I found the original blueprints – it’s not on them either.  It’s legal enough to have done it, but I was worried at first because it seemed so illegitimate in there being no _record_ of it, but not only is all the plumbing and electrical and such to code and above,” at this he gestured at the ceiling, which seemed flat to her, “but it’s thoroughly ventilated, soundproofed, and definitely qualifies as a bomb shelter.”  He turned back to her and grinned broadly as they reached the floor.  “It stretches under almost the entirety of the grounds; we shouldn’t try to plant anything beyond the briars on the walls.  Those are more of a vine plant than anything, and the perimeter of this stops a ways before the outer walls, but I’m not sure how many feet of soil is actually between this and air.” 

            There just wasn’t much to be said to that… at least, beyond it being perfectly marvelous.  There was a back-up system of the surveillance – though the screens were all dark – as well as various rooms Jake only gestured to as being storage for this or that, or a bathroom, a few bedrooms…. He gestured towards what seemed to be an incomplete shooting range that was to be enclosed and ventilated before taking her up a _different_ entrance back into the house proper.  That room was as bare as the previous entrance, and he admitted that he hadn’t entirely decided how he wanted to go about setting up the security of them.  Apparently, he’d fought to get them all open and serviceable, and they probably weren’t all of bomb shelter quality anymore, and he was still debating how restricted he wanted to keep the area. 

            She was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and they hadn’t even gotten through much of the first floor. 

            There were the polite sort of half bathrooms around the obviously public areas of the downstairs, but that was only one wing; there was a kitchen at both ends of the property.  The smaller one was bright and cheerful in yellows and white, while the larger was closer to the surveillance room and more… creatively majestic, with dark wood cabinets and black stone counters, walls painted a deep, bright violet. 

            She found herself appreciating the personality of whoever had chosen all the colors; it gave the place more character than she would imagine most estates like this generally had. 

            Besides the grounds and the way the driveway circled into a sort of enclave or courtyard to start with, the house itself wrapped around a large courtyard.  It was away from the more neutral, public entrance they had come in, with one entrance leading into the purple kitchen – the corner of windows over the large, industrial sink looked into it as well.  While the house wrapped it on three sides, however, there was a small garden on the fourth, and beyond it a detached guesthouse – far enough into the drive to be impossible to see from the road, but opening direct to the drive all the same.  The interior was all done in deep blues and crèmes –thick carpet, bed with too many pillows, and the bathroom stocked with the basics.  _Definitely for the more important guests that you don’t want to make get a hotel._  

            Closer to the yellow kitchen were more normal bedrooms and full bathrooms and a large laundry room… with a chute coming down from the upper floors like a hotel might have.  What she was now starting to dub in her mind as the ‘polite’ part of the house – the neutral sort of entry area – had more than one den or living room to socialize or watch movies in, for differing sizes of crowds; but the back of the house had what could damn well qualify as a small _theater_ , with tiered levels crowded with overstuffed chairs and couches with coffee tables.  It was again painted in dramatic colors, a deep ocean blue this time, with grey and black furniture and dark carpeting. 

            Relena decided then that she didn’t have a mansion, even if Dorothy _had_ something that could possibly fit the definition of ‘townhouse’.  She had a _compound_.  A very personalized, comfortable, laid-back and elegant _compound_.  It was still in too urban of an area to count as an estate, but she was starting to suspect she could house far more than twenty and still do it quite comfortably. 

            The stairway they took to the second floor didn’t connect to the third, but it was probably the fourth set of stairs she had seen, and Jake had mentioned at least one other set with a vague gesture.  He wore a subtly smug expression, and she could tell that not only was he exceedingly proud of himself, but enjoying her discovery of what he’d done.  Relena delayed pointing out the inevitable until they had passed through a practical labyrinth of bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, bare rooms, and two very small kitchen areas. 

            “We’re going to need a maid.”  Everyone could be responsible for their own laundry and upkeep of their rooms, and there was some degree of turns that could be taken in cleaning the public areas, but this was far more maintenance than Jake’s waxing and waning annoyance with Sergeant Krititz could handle.  And it needed to be kept ‘important guest’ clean in a lot of areas, not ‘soldier at home’ clean.  Also, she knew that she and Jake, at least, often were not going to have the time for any of that at all, when they were even _there_.  _And when we aren’t, with most of the guard out with us, everything here will be collecting dust to look tacky with._  

            He grimaced, nodding.  “I’m still debating how to go about it, but agreed.”  They had decided that they didn’t want to take any housekeeping staff with them when they left Brussels due to connections and possible security issues, and hiring staff from a field where security checks were unheard of was almost worse.  Jake had carefully handpicked everyone they were bringing to Munich, and though she hadn’t specifically requested it, had been careful to choose only those who were either carefully neutral of their preferences between the Peacecraft siblings, or leaning towards Relena without being too obvious or pushy about it.  She didn’t want to have a house divided, as it were, but she didn’t want powder kegs to spark, or look like she was drawing lines – her goal was independence, not separation. 

            She debated asking him how Dorothy was arranging the upkeep of her ‘townhouse’, then decided it didn’t matter; if the concept had passed his scrutiny for security, he would have already brought it up.  Dorothy was going to have far fewer sensitive documents in her residence, and despite her wealth, was a poor target.  History had taught her that it only took one untrustworthy person to sabotage privacy, or assassinate an entire board meeting with a bomb. 

            In Brussels, she hadn’t had to worry about her security, as the lengths it would take simply to reach her _building_ had been extensive, exclusive, and very well maintained.  Here, they had to build their own infrastructure from the ground up, and it was all on their own heads to make an effectively safe system.  A maid would inevitably learn all the secrets and weaknesses of her home as a matter of course; the trust level implied was… immense.  There were things you could do with a massive amount of manpower and a corporation outlook that simply weren’t feasible on the scale they wanted, here. 

            By the time they reached her suite, it was evident that the virtual labyrinth surrounding it was intentional.  Obviously, anyone living there – including the maid – would find no trouble with it, but the entire layout was counterintuitive and without any clear pattern; a stranger would find themselves quite lost in short order.  The colors were less vivid, keeping with the confusion and refusing basic landmarks, but still unusual, in shades ranging from a pale teal on most walls, but venturing into darker ranges of teal, aqua, blue, gray, and a few other colors to the more specific rooms.  Most of the bedrooms had dark carpet and the bathrooms tile, but elsewhere was all dark wood in the same mahogany or stained walnut as the purple kitchen’s cabinets.  The doors and their frames stood out in an almost startlingly elegant way from the color in the same dark wood relief. 

            “How many walls did you knock down and rebuild?”  She had found at least five stairways, and seen one set of cast iron railings that _didn’t_ stop on the second floor. 

            “I didn’t keep track.  I remember that it wasn’t as many as I thought it might take, though.”  He grinned.  “I haven’t been away from you _nearly_ enough to have orchestrated this in person, Lena, come on.” 

            That was a valid point.  Going into her – and she supposed Jake’s, too, really – suite of rooms, she was momentarily surprised at how small the antechamber was.  There was plastic of the draping over the wood floor that made odd noises under her shoes; these walls had apparently been primed, but not yet painted, and still stood bare.  There was enough room for maybe two couches – so long as they weren’t too large – and accompanying tables for papers or drinks, but it was obviously not somewhere that they would spend much time. 

            “I took liberties with the colors in the bedroom based on something I picked up from you, but I thought with how much flavor Mai added to the house otherwise, you might like a few rooms to play with yourself.”  He shook his head.  “She showed me a few examples of what she wanted to try when I mentioned it needed to be done, but I think she rather outdid herself.” 

            “I’m impressed,” Relena agreed, finding herself delighted at the idea, despite how incredibly frivolous it seemed, before focusing on the far door.  “You took liberties?  And how many proxies did you use to get all this done?” 

            He smirked and gestured for her to go first.  “Three, including Mai, but excluding David supervising a thing or two.  We used a downright _mess_ of people to get the more drastic work done without letting anyone get intimate with the layout or all the details, then I let Polanski have the run of the place for weeks on end before I let him bring in others to do finishing touches.  Honestly, we only hired people in for the wall moving on this floor and the range downstairs – that kid’s got creative drive and work ethic coming out his ears.” 

            She grinned.  “Isn’t he the one with the duct tape that helped us sneak out to Amsterdam?” 

            “Yes; he’d helped us sneak _in_ to Brussels without being noticed much the night of the attack too, so technically I knew him before he got mildly infamous for his heroics in concussed duct taping skill.  After Amsterdam, though, I think your brother wanted to just leave him to rot, despite how much promise he has.  Kid’s _thorough_.”  He gestured again.  “Aren’t you going to look?” 

            “I was waiting for you to finish your thought.”  From the way he’d phrased it, he expected the next room to wow her, and she figured she wouldn’t cut him off.  That said though, she threw it open and, in spite of herself, gasped. 

            It looked… like water.  The ceiling was the clear soft blue of the sky in Sanc and the walls were textured in ocean tones, all the shades of blue she could see in the sea from her balcony before… the pure, pristine white of the baseboards and crown molding just completed the effect.  It looked like her room in Sanc had after she’d spruced it up –

The only thing missing was the balcony, but there _was_ a window seat looking into the courtyard instead…  

            …and that was the four-poster bed and sheers she had fallen in love with in her time as a princess, in the one place that had been truly _hers_ and home. 

            She fought the urge to cry; he’d probably understand, he had obviously talked to Dorothy and _gotten_ her bedroom furniture for her, but just in that moment…  _No one_ did that kind of thing.  No one had _ever_ gone to that kind of length for her just to try to give her a little sense of peace or comfort, even her parents.  She’d never thought it actually mattered, and had convinced herself she didn’t care, but this… the rush of emotion flooding into her was overwhelming.  The amount of thought and care he’d obviously put into this was just…  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.  Turning in a full circle, drinking it in, she met his eyes.  “Thank-you.  It’s just… _perfect_.” 

            Her friend looked a little sheepish.  “Good.  Seems like I nailed it a bit better than I was even aiming for, but I’m glad you like it.  Honestly, it was more a wild guess than anything, but when Lin brought up you being so happy to be by the ocean again, Dorothy remembered you running your hand over your dressing table while talking to her with the balcony doors thrown open, and…”  He shrugged.  “We’re landlocked here, so I thought I’d try to compensate a little.” 

            That was the wonderful thing about Jake; when it came to his friends, he pulled out all the stops, just because he wanted to and could.  He noticed things most people missed, and went out of his way to make you comfortable and happy with little things that made all the difference.  It would have been far easier to simply supply the room with something elegant, but he’d given her back her mother’s dressing table and vanity that was inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers on the drawers and corners… 

            It… meant so much more than she could possibly say aloud.  She hadn’t even known she had missed and wanted it back so badly, but he _had_ , and he’d done it for her. 

            “It’s wonderful, Jake, thank-you.”  She knew he could read how much she meant it in her voice and body language.  Wiping at her eyes briefly, she focused on the bookcase in the corner by the door that looked like another murphy bed, currently up in the wall instead of out, and a dresser and walk-in closet.  A set of shoji screens similar to the ones he kept for cordoning off his personal area in Brussels leaned against the wall.  There were a few pieces of overstuffed furniture as well, and what at a glance was a decent bathing room set-up, though smaller than most of the full bathrooms they had come across so far… to the point of being perfunctory.  She shrugged – a bathroom was really only there for doing the necessities, really – and went to run her hands over the vanity for the first time in almost three years.  She had so very little of her birth parents, and this had always seemed so intimate and personal, somehow.  Her mother had sat at this table every morning for years… it meant something for her to do the same. 

            “Lena?  There’s really not too much left…” 

            “Ah, of course,” she muttered, realizing she had been in something of a haze.  Cataloguing everything in the room, she realized that she had identified Jake’s closet, but didn’t see one for herself.  “Where-” 

            “That way,” he gestured, striding ahead of her to a door that was so perfectly painted into the ocean whirls and swoops that she’d missed it entirely.  “It’s a little camouflaged, which wasn’t my intention, for the record.  It’s easy enough to change if it gets annoying, though; it would look good white.” 

            “Probably,” she agreed, opening the door… and blinking at the spiral staircase in the center of the large closet.  “Oh just give it up and smile like the cat with the canary you are.” 

            He laughed delightedly.  “There’s only three floors, right?  This is the last… two things, I promise.” 

            She giggled disbelievingly at that, turn to _look_ at him… before grinning and dashing up the stairs. 

            His laugh followed her up as he took them at a more reasonable pace, and started explaining as she looked all around.  “You can’t really blame me for this one, it was all set up like this to start with.” 

            Relena laughed outright, looking around in amazement.  “Well they certainly had their priorities straight, then.  Is that a _sauna_?” 

            Everything seemed like it was made of frosted glass… including the ceiling, and sizable parts of the walls.  Some parts were wood or metal or ceramic obviously, but…  _Wow._   There was a giant tub, and someone had left the doors open on the sauna and massive shower stall, and a smaller shower stall, which confused her for a moment, until she realized that the _ceiling_ of it was the showerhead, with one area looking like it was heavier ‘rain’ than the rest.  The stairway had come up on a sort of upraised platform, presumably so water wouldn’t drop down into the room below… and there were a few drains on the floor for good measure.  “Did they move out because they couldn’t afford the water bill?” she asked half seriously.  There were _six_ sinks and plenty of counter space, maple cabinets, and some wooden stalls in the corner…  She frowned and strode over to them. 

            “I doubt it,” Jake decided, coming up into the room himself, and moving one foot to slide a hatch over the opening in the floor, then bending down to seal some kind of heavier latch she hadn’t noticed with weathering around the edges that closed with a solid sound.  “There’s a well on premises.” 

            The princess stopped at that, and turned to give him another disbelieving look.  “ _Where_ did they put a well?” 

            He gave in and started snickering.  “Below the bomb shelter?” 

            Relena sighed and closed her eyes a moment, unable to actually consider how having their own water source was probably also a good thing anyhow.  She remembered one of the girls in Sanc mentioning her family estates all having wells simply as a matter of fact…  A moment later she collected herself and went to consider a set of wooden stalls with frosted glass panels, and frowned at the deadbolts – one on the outside, and one on the inside – before blinking down at the raised teak floor panel for all of two seconds before she gasped and reached down to snatch it up.  A deep, wide-mouthed, vertical copper tub glistened up at her.  “An onsen!”  She hadn’t seen a good onsen since she’d left Japan, and the fact that it was metal meant she wouldn’t have to wash completely before getting in… she looked up, and saw shower fixtures and a shelf, and a space to stand in or put the platform off to one side, so you should shower _then_ soak, and the stall was small enough that it would steam up.  There was a drain to the side, and the platform looked like it sealed, so you could really go back and forth, like if she wanted to leave a mask in her hair while she relaxed… 

            Technically, it didn’t matter, with how deep that massive tub in the main was, but this was another thing she realized she’d expected to never see again. 

            “I suppose it was too much to hope that you’d think it was weird and leave it all to me,” Jake noted dryly, coming up and gesturing at the locks.  “I’m still using it, though; I added the locks for gender segregation problems, as it were.” 

            _Yes.  If Dorothy managed to open the door on Jake in the tub, he might **actually** try to kill her._   The sad thing was, he’d probably done the locks with _exactly_ that thought in mind – he was putting up precautions to prevent him from murdering his friends. 

            _Oh no._   “Dorothy’s going to try to move in.” 

            He gestured towards a door down the hall.  “There’s rooms for her set up that way.”  Reaching past her, he put the platform back, and she moved out of the way so he could do it properly and close the door.  “I’m more than thrilled with it all, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still a little confused about this room,” the soldier admitted.  “I could call most of it variety and decadence, but there are _seven sinks_.” 

            _I must have missed one,_ Relena thought idly as she tried to come up with a possible solution.  “Well… this house is old enough – and certainly _big_ enough – to have been a noble family home, right?” 

            He nodded.  “So a group bathroom, kind of thing?”  He still looked a little confused by the idea. 

            Relena laughed as she realized why.  “Women versus men, Jake; this looks like it might have been a place to be _social_ in.”  Shaking her head and walking down the hall in the opposite direction of where he’d said rooms for Dorothy were, she asked, “What was the family name?  Why did they leave?” 

            “As far as I can tell, the majority of them died or married off until they just couldn’t upkeep it and not have it as a total waste,” Jake explained.  “They couldn’t afford it anymore.” 

            “Maybe a lot of daughters, then?” she suggested, considering the _wall_ of cabinets.  “It wouldn’t have to be all daughters, if they were in a group home…  It came up in class once when we were discussing inheritance and the fading nobility, that Olivia Dontelaine’s family used to be one of the main power syndicates through Europe, but her great grandmother’s generation had five daughters and no sons, so they started trying to return full heir rights to duchesses.  It didn’t really hold, though, and that generation of sisters had nearly all daughters too, and a few cases of divorce after children…  What?”  The expression on his face was highly amused, and she laughed.  “This was a Dontelaine house?”  Laughing more, she shook her head and continued on out.  “I’ll have to keep in mind that her family at least at one point was paranoid enough to make _you_ proud.  Maybe I ought to get ahold of Olivia.  It’s been a while, and-  Oh!” 

            It was a long gallery that looked like it half wrapped around the house, overlooking the grounds… all of glass panels.  The _ceiling_ was all the same clear paneling so she could see the storm clouds perfectly, and the style was minimalistic with a few couches here or there, and tables, and with Lin standing over by one of the longer tables, smirking, with her bag for the day… 

            It was set up as her _office_.  Lounge too, but…  “Oh my God.”  _No wonder the antechamber was so small._   “How many staircases come up this high?” she asked breathlessly. 

            “Three, if you include the bathroom one; Dorothy would have to come through the bathroom to get in without going up and down the stairs a bit,” Jake explained smoothly.  “There _is_ a staircase on her side though, obviously.”  He stepped forward, gesturing in the two directions that could serve as entrances.  “That one leads straight down to the main pantry.”  The idea obviously amused him greatly, by his voice.  “Which you didn’t see, but is between the larger kitchen and surveillance.  It has a foyer, but the staircase Dorothy would use to reach her rooms is the only one that actually accesses all three floors.”  Motioning to another area, he added, “There’s a sort of… escape dumb waiter to the basement over there, and there are a few on other floors that I skipped over, which I’m still working out the details for security on.”  He smirked.  “And since you’ve been so kind about not asking, I’ll note that the framework for this room is weaker than the panels; I’ve seen this stuff take a hit from a beam saber and only dent.”  Smirk widening into a grin, he added, “You might really want to look into that Olivia friend of yours.  I understand it was the Dontelaines that developed the material in the first place, in preparation for the space age, but I didn’t change _anything_ structural on this floor – they had already built it like this.” 

            He was obviously incredibly pleased.  “Maybe you should marry in,” she suggested. 

            The blonde man rolled his eyes as Lincoln cackled.  Relena smiled as he finished explaining a few technical details.  Apparently he also had a surveillance set-up in one corner up here she had yet to see, and security wasn’t fully arranged yet, which was part of why they had managed to move through the house so easily.  None of the cameras above the first floor had microphones, for sake of privacy.  The floor up here was the same deep wood as in most of the house, but despite the open space, her steps didn’t really echo… though she jumped when they practically _trilled_ underneath her like the spooky house horror music when she got too close to the door.  Lin – in complete support of her, she was sure – started cackling again. 

            “You missed that in your little entrance room downstairs,” Jake noted idly.  “I think the plastic muffled it, or something; all the approaches are nightingale floors.” 

            It was her turn to roll her eyes.  “Wonderful, if we have intruders, they’ll have to go on the walls all ninja-style to surprise you.” 

            “Walking on the walls doesn't work so well when they’re demagnetized steel.” 

            _…I really am going to have to look up the Dontelaine histories again, aren’t I?_   “Point.”  She hadn’t looked closely enough at the surface texture of the walls either, apparently.  “So what else have you glossed over?” 

-

***

-

**June 18 th 198 – Wednesday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah – Encampment Roshan**

            Roshan frowned as the light shifted, and put down his sliver of mirror to see who the fuck thought it was important enough to interrupt his morning rituals.  They _knew_ better than that, the little fuckers, so he didn’t bother wiping the shaving cream off his face before turning, ready to tear the man to pieces… 

            To see Robby was standing just inside the entrance to his tent.  “What are _you_ doing here?”  Robby was chaotic psychosis incarnate; everyone had orders to never let him _near_ him unless Roshan had asked specifically- 

            “Once,” the blonde muttered after a moment, “I would have made an offer, and said I was sorry.” 

            _What the fuck?_   He hurriedly used a towel to wipe his face and stood.  The crazy shit was a loose cannon; staying sitting would have been a mistake.  Roshan narrowed his eyes at him instead.  “What do you want?”  It was entirely possible that Robby had simply killed everyone who had tried to keep him from entering his tent… or somehow persuaded them to see things his way. 

            “Oh, so many things,” Robby dismissed, moving towards him slowly, his expression blank… his almost boneless grace gone.  His eyes seemed flat, and that made the panic swell in his gut faster as he realized he had never seen his subordinate look so _sane_ as he did right now. 

            This was the man he’d feared existed, not the one he knew and held at bay. 

            _He’s taking the camp as his own!_ “The other encampments won’t let you get away with usurping me,” he snarled. 

            “If I had thought they would, I might have done this months ago,” Robby noted tonelessly, stopping a yard away.  He flicked out the blade he had already had in hand and shifted into a defensive stance before reaching with his left to draw the saber he kept strapped across his lower back.  “You’ve only ever considered the possibilities that you can think of on your own, Roshan; always predictable, never any creativity.  I’ve been grateful for that, but I won’t regret cutting you down this morning.  A different solution has presented itself, and one of the highlights was entering this very moment.  For all the things you’ve done, knowingly and with pleasure, your chokehold of control…  No one will mourn you.” 

            He was talking nonsense again.  “You’re insane,” he hissed, knowing that without any of his own weapons at hand, with Robby, he was too slow to even attempt to defend himself; the man was too blindingly fast. 

            The blonde chuckled darkly.  “If only it were that simple.” 

            He moved. 

-

***

-

**June 19 th 198 – Thursday – Prague, Czech Republic**

            It was starting today. 

            Xutao supposed the only prevailing emotion he had at the moment was relief.  He’d been investigating what he could of the Cambyses a little over a year ago before his cover had been blown and he’d gotten shot, which led to his long spiral of hide-and-seek with… well, _enigmatic_ was the most polite word he could ascribe to his self-assigned traveling companion.  Oddly, it hadn’t actually been any of the Cambyses group that injured him, considering how volatile and dangerous that den of vipers had been; it had been the _local police_ who had probably been looking for the same thing as him. 

            If there was anything he’d learned since leaving home, it was that no one in uniform appreciated aid from someone less inclined to join their ranks. 

            _Cambyses, though…_   The General had told him to go take some personal time, probably to spurn Hilde into higher levels of determination – _As if she needs any more of **that**_ – but it probably also had to do with how he’d broken down while giving his report on the group the military was now starting its takedown of.  He didn’t really feel anything particular about it today, to be honest… he’d more or less numbed himself to the memories all over again the moment the military had started to actively contemplate its destruction weeks ago. 

            …But he wasn’t going to turn down personal time that he could lord over Hilde the next time she got obnoxious.  It wasn’t until he had arrived in the sims room and saw that his usual chair was taken that he remembered that ‘personal time’ was specifically that not spent training, and even if that’s what he had always done with his time since he was a small child, that wasn’t going to be the case here. 

            Sally Po had given him a very seriously-spoken lecture about it early on after finding and accepting him into her then motley crew, before noting that she _would_ throw a book at him, if need be. 

            He had been holding out hope at some point after leaving home that he would come across women who _weren’t_ as overbearing and ready to embarrass him as his mother and aunts.  Instead, he’d found a white Chinese woman who acted frighteningly like his own mother with the exception that she had _guns_ to back it, a cool-headed commander who thought nothing of allowing his partner attempt to set him on fire while he slept – “ _You obviously weren’t trying very hard to keep her out, Chang – consider that.”_ – and a damn hellcat for a partner that made his childhood neighbor friend, Long Meilan, look sweet and demure in comparison. 

            He’d honestly felt sorry for Wufei when the Long line had deemed him acceptable to take up the prestige and honor of being made family as husband to their fiery heiress.  There had been talk of how they expected _many_ heirs in a timely manner, even.  To that statement, Wufei had had the grace to do nothing but stare dully at the representative come with the announcement until the man left. 

            …Sometimes he wondered what _had_ happened to Wufei.  He’d apparently come across both Po and Noin multiple times, and just as apparently made his escape some time ago without bothering to look back.  Even as far as the Regime had managed to track any of the pilots, Wufei had gone completely off the map with no sign of life since the middle of the battle at _Libra_.  Despite that, no one had seriously considered that he might be dead… and even if he was, it wasn’t as though they would treat the subject of him any differently.  Sally Po had pointed out to him that Wufei actually had a long-standing history of doing exactly this, and that he wasn’t exactly what she would call reliable even if he was around…  And Xutao could only agree.  Even when they were kids, Wufei had pointedly refused to consistently follow anyone’s schedule but his own; it just worked out that he agreed with their teachers most of the time. 

            Though there had been that one philosophy class that he had walked out of on the second day and pointedly skipped for the rest of the block.  Xutao had lived in fear for months that the professor was going to come tear down their dorm room door looking for his roommate; Wufei had stopped talking to him or even acknowledging that he existed until he stopped trying to reference the incident.  And as far as Xu could tell, Wufei hadn’t ever faced any consequences for it. 

            …The majority of the Cambyses members were people kidnapped or taken hostage, though; the missing people who were never found because there were too little traces.  _Maybe that was why Noin told me to take some time_.  It was hardly the first time the thought occurred to him, but he hoped more than anything that Wufei _wasn’t_ in the Sahara.  He really hoped the jackass was sequestered off in some cramped room with books and papers piled everywhere so they were almost falling – feet on his desk, nose in a book, snarling at the poor bastard unlucky enough to room with him over any noise he made. 

            He didn’t really want to sit and just think anymore, though.  Sitting back up from his bed, he reached under it for his laptop, seriously considering just surfing aimlessly like he hadn’t had reason to for _years_ … at least, once he’d checked everything he ought to.  Work wasn’t something to be left idle, personal time or not, and- 

            In one of his throwaway sort of email addresses, there was a message titled:

 

-

            ‘ **I don’t like chances, they’re iffy’**

-

 

            _No…_   He’d known someone who said that, which had to be one of the more stupid, roundabout phrases he had ever heard from someone over the age of ten.  Hurriedly, he clicked it open, half hoping it was spam about winning a lottery in some obscure part of the world- 

 

-

_806-51-238-669-3592-8_

_Call me, secure line._

_Adam_

-

 

            It was a universal number, probably to a disposable phone. 

            _So much for free time._

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah – Encampment Roshan**

            “Charel, what the hell is this?” 

            “Smoke,” the blonde returned flatly, not shifting from his vigil of the pyre.  “I should think that much obvious.” 

            Mitchell fought the urge to growl back his own response.  “ _Why_ are you doing something that will draw more attention?  This was _not_ the plan!” 

            The Frenchman finally turned to meet his eyes; they were just as flat as his voice, as somber as the forced neutrality in his face.  “I’m not entirely sure what started it.  Either someone talked in their sleep or got the balls to try to save an old cage friend that stayed twisted.  Whichever it was, it got violent, and even worse, it got _loud_.”  His eyes flicked towards his shoulder, but he visibly stopped himself from turning around to stare at the fire again.  “These men were ours… Roshan’s are where they fell.”  His eyes gained a stubborn glint.  “I will _not_ mix their ashes with ours.” 

            Mitchell ran a hand down his face, eyes shut.  He didn’t fully blame the man, his reasoning was sound, but…  _Shit._   “How much is this going to change the nearby encampment’s reactions and preparations?”  They were just going to have to salvage it somehow.  As for the dead…  “Do you know the enough about the dead for me to inform their families?” 

            That seemed to soften Razo’s mask somewhat.  Nodding, he admitted, “Robby kept a list.  After our first casualty where we didn’t know the true name of the dead, we… didn’t want it to happen again.  All of us came to be in Robby’s squadron because he could see that we wanted out of here, back to the real world…  Everything he did was to try to make it so we could go back home someday.”  He met Mitchell’s gaze solidly for a moment before he did a half turn and his gaze slid back to the pyre.  “A lot of us got this far by using nicknames and pretending we were someone else.  He had the only copy of the list so no one could touch your real name, if that was how we managed.” 

            The past tense was very obvious, as was the deference.  “You weren’t the squad leader.”  It had seemed as though he obviously was, before, but if he wasn’t in power- 

            “Not even his second, or one of his captains,” Charel agreed.  “I wasn’t in charge of keeping anyone alive but myself.  I was his _friend_.”  He shrugged a little uncomfortably.  “His people skills could use some work – he got used to giving out orders and expecting us to obey or die because of what he saw and was warning us of.  He trusted me to handle this better than he would have.” 

            Staring at the smoke again, he seemed to remember how off topic they had gotten.  “This much smoke won’t alert anyone; funeral pyres are common.  No one will think twice about it until it’s been a few days without news of what the incident was.  Or at least,” and he grimaced at this, “that is true so long as we caught everyone who tried to run.  The captains think they did, but we haven’t survived this long to make assumptions now.” 

            The colonel sighed as some of the tightness eased out of his chest; the greater their element of surprise, the better chances for fewer casualties.  It had been deemed too unethical to simply bomb the encampments in the Sahara, and he had agreed, but he couldn’t help but wonder how many good men and women that he brought with him would go home in body bags.  As it was, whatever had happened here had relieved him of at least one battle’s casualty numbers without risking the entire operation. 

            “We didn’t have a way to dispose of Roshan’s dead without raising suspicion, and it was only over with maybe ten hours ago, when we knew you were coming.  If the bodies aren’t disposed of, it might be difficult for people to live here again any time soon.” 

            “We brought people for that too,” Mitchell assured him, and was gratified as he saw Razo Charel relax a little more.  “Do you have Robby’s list?” 

            Charel nodded.  “Cory has it.”  Turning his back on the fire once more, he started to walk back in the direction of the main of their encampment.  “I’ll take you to him.” 

-

***

-

**German countryside road**

            “Huh.  Goats.” 

            Jake snickered, probably remembering all his old cadet’s goat insults, and Relena rolled her eyes, offering Mu a smile.  “Goats,” she agreed, “and sheep.  I’ve really always been a fan of mutton, personally.  If the cattle industry’s crash hadn’t been so economically devastating, I’d be delighted for the change in our diets.”  She winked.  “Secretly, I’m still enjoying it, but I’m hardly one of the starving, am I?” 

            This was the third contact they were making with the individual sites where the heat amplifiers were being inspected, and the first time they had brought Mu with them as a translator instead of Mai.  They had opted to leave the Australian major in Munich to oversee the final touches on the house, and to make sure the lieutenant that Jake hadn’t initially planned on hiring didn’t feel like a third… eleventh… wheel. 

            Really, once she’d taken a moment to actually talk to and spend some time with the American woman, she rather liked her.  She didn't have Mailin’s pure attitude and flair, but the princess was finding that to be on the verge of overwhelming sometimes in any case.  Mu was more sedate, but considering the overall circus her entourage had the tendency to become in the off moments, that was far from a bad thing…  Especially considering the fact that she could hold her ground with a level, amused look and raised eyebrow until she was allowed to finish making her point, if interrupted. 

            Her personality was a bit more in line with her own, Relena had decided. 

            “Mutton always struck me as a colonial food,” Mu admitted, staring out the window.  “The decrease in beef was probably one of the first things that made it all really hit home that I wasn’t going to just… wake up and have everything be better again.” 

            …Mu _was_ American, and had the somber air most of the surviving citizens.  Life had changed very little in the colonies, and while many of the shifts had been drastic throughout the planet, nothing compared to the massive dead zones and loss of the two American continents.  The largest piece of _Libra_ had fallen off the coast of Chile, but all of the northern half of South America, all of Central America, Mexico, and the western half of the United States had been heavily showered with debris. 

            Areas as far southeast as Buenos Aires and as for north as New York and Maine had escaped the majority of the initial damage, but the need to evacuate the north and what was left of the Midwest had been immediately apparent as temperatures quickly dropped.  One of Milliardo’s first motions of the Regime had been to attempt to evacuate as much of the west as was possible into the colonies, but before the week was out he had had to admit that sending any manned shuttles in was killing more than half of the attempted rescuers.  He had retreated into assisting any shuttles that tried to rise out… but it hadn’t been long before those became rare.  Satellite footage had alternately shown complete abandonment and death and destruction, or rioting and violence.  There had been some attempts to drop food and supplies from space, at first.  They had sent a bare handful of ships specialized to withstand cosmic storms that could probably take the abuse of the weather, but only one had returned successfully – the others had been mobbed and wrecked, then taken for parts. 

            She had sobbed for days when Milliardo had officially closed the western borders from all entry, but she had understood.  It had been a relief in some ways, as the shock of the Fall ended enough to really _cry_ , where she had just been frozen before… 

            Then the eastern economy had started to collapse…  And either a civil war or just pure chaos had ensued.  She wasn’t entirely sure of the end result, beyond it being utterly disastrous, and that it had possibly been preventable, with aid. 

            When Milliardo had terminated all support or even communication, she had screamed at him.  She’d done it both logically, arguing, then just purely from the heart once it became clear nothing would convince him – that there was nothing left but despair.  She’d curled up sobbing in his arms in front of his entire staff for over an hour.  Afterwards, he had explained all the details and reasons why he had done it, and she had understood even if she didn’t agree, and she had sat with him crying periodically all night, letting her very imperfect brother _be_ an older brother and try to make everything alright.  It had been a sense of family she had secretly missed and been craving for so long that it had made everything… okay again, despite the disaster, and had given her hope for her own future. 

            It was the day after that when he bought her the first ticket away from all the politics.  She had never really forgiven him for that, though she still wasn’t sure if the slight was over his belittlement or his abandonment of her, as well as of the Americas. 

            “…I can only perceive the disaster so far,” Relena admitted after a long moment.  “I understand more than that, but I cannot… _comprehend_ the scale, and if I could, I’m not entirely sure I would be able to function at all.”  After another moment, she added, “I believe my brother is afraid to try to understand more than the logistics of it, himself.” 

            “I don’t blame him for the abandonment,” Mu returned quickly, turning away from the window to meet her eyes.  “I don’t know that there was anything else really for options, and he supported any further evacuation attempts even after he shut the borders.  It was a lost cause, and everyone knew it.  There was nothing left to be had.  I just…” 

            _Which means she **does** blame him for **Libra**._   She offered the woman a sad smile.  _But who doesn’t?  He **did** it._   “I find myself wishing it had never happened, myself.  I went up there to try to stop him, but…”  She grimaced ruefully.  “I suppose the results speak for themselves. 

            Relena would never defend her brother’s attempt to wholesale slaughter the entire planet.  _Never_. 

            Mu’s smile was tired and rueful in the same way.  “No use crying over spilled milk, really.  It’s done with, and if raging against the past would get me anything, I’d be all over it.  But this is reality now, so I figure I might as well spend the energy on something more… constructive.”  Her following smile was more genuine as she gestured back out the window.  “So.  Sheep and goats have taken up a lot of the meat industry… and pigs too, right?” 

            “Right,” Relena agreed, glad the other woman had introduced the change in subject.  “And eggs; fewer chickens are going to the slaughterhouse, now.  You haven’t seen any of the hydroponics plant buildings yet, but they let the chickens run around, managing pests, and through the fields too.  The pigs, however, don’t need grazing ground, so they’re stacked rather disgustingly indoors, floor after floor.”  She made a face.  “I’ve only visited one of those personally, and don’t greatly care to see one again unless it’s absolutely necessary.”  Gesturing back out the window, she added, “This is a bit more peaceful.  Raising rabbits for the meat and fur has gotten rather popular again, but it’s mostly being done on a small scale…” 

            It was nice to dive into business, to focus on the productive measures being taken and leave the morose end of current life behind for a little while. 

-

***

-

**June 20 th 198 – Friday – Lausanne, Switzerland**

            “I’m hungry.” 

            Odin blinked as his phone vibrated, then frowned as he dug for it.  “Didn’t you eat an hour ago?” 

            Marlé shrugged.  “Something like that.  We should get food, though.” 

            …He couldn’t decide if that was probably normal or not; his own thoughts on the timing of food when he was her age had never been indulged.  Frowning again at the ‘Lu’ on his caller ID, he hit the connect.  _“Grüetzi.”_  

            _“Grüetzi,”_ Noin’s voice returned almost impatiently.  “How’s your schedule over the next two weeks?” 

            He ran a few references and scenarios through his head.  “Easily arranged.  Why?” 

            “Tch.  Two of my best are running off on some sort of family emergency, and I don’t have anyone that could cover a few of their shifts.  You do good work, when I can talk you into it.” 

            Odin considered Marlé for a bare moment, then shrugged.  “I’m not against it.  Which shop were they working out of?” 

            “Bucharest.  Where in Switzerland are you, again?” 

            “Lausanne.”  There was a reason he’d answered the phone with a Swiss greeting, despite being in the French part of the country. 

            “I know the trains through there,” Noin decided after a moment.  “They usually have one on its way to Milan around 13:00.” 

            He checked his watch.  “That’s only half an hour off, so I should be able to make that then plan the rest of the route from there.”  Marlé made a rather loud, annoyed noise at him and he rolled his eyes.  “Go find something to eat then, I’ll pack.”  Gesturing for her to be careful before she darted off, he headed back in the direction of the hotel they had been basing out of for the past four days.  “You’re checking that time, right?” 

            “As we speak,” she agreed.  “What was that about?” 

            Noin already knew Marlé existed.  “She wants to eat on the hour, apparently; she was demanding a second lunch before you called.” 

            A thoughtful noise.  “She’s young, I’ve gathered?” 

            “Somewhat.” 

            “Is she going to be with you?” 

            “Vaguely.” 

            She laughed.  “You’re surprisingly honest, you know.” 

            “I’m not sure how to respond to that.” 

            There was another husky chuckle on the other end of the line.  “ _Exactly._ ” 

            Odin shrugged.  “How urgent is this, really?” 

            “Mm, not as much as I’m making it out to be, if you need a handful of days, but important; I was hoping you weren’t so far as 2000 kilometers away.  I trust you dislike planes as much as I do, these days?” 

            “My passport is colonial, so I have less issue getting to and from space,” Odin allowed, “but Earth air transports give outsiders a harder time.”  Zechs only bothered trying to control the colonies to a minimal degree; his own backyard, however, was a different story, and planes could all too easily become a trap with a single poor move.  It was entirely doable, but there were easier methods available.  “It’s just not worth the hassle if I can help it.” 

            “Mm, I get the same trouble with my Earth passport out in space these days,” Noin agreed companionably.  “There’s just no other option, up there.” 

            “True.”  Technically, there _were_ ways, but he was sure that Noin knew them, and they were hardly the kind of thing to discuss over the airways. 

            They were silent for a moment as he walked and she presumably looked up the information he needed, before Noin dared ask a more personal question.  “The girl _will_ be fine without you, right?” 

            Odin smirked.  He appreciated the sentiment on some level, but the fact that she might not be was… amusing.  “I’ve taught her how to handle herself; I don’t want her far enough away that I can’t help her if she needs it, but she can manage any situation either on her own or long enough for me to back her up.”  He frowned.  “Are we going to be moving around at all?” 

            “…We might, a bit.” 

            _Maybe I should send her to the Sronas._   It wouldn’t be much further to Israel from Romania, and he could probably get Moira to meet her partway.  He trusted the Sronas, and Leia both knew and had no issue with them; she and Dr. Srona were not so different in their ideals, after all.  After meeting Sally, Samuel, and Leia, he was starting to suspect that medicine tended to breed a certain kind of individual.  He’d have to talk it over with Marlé on the way to Milan. 

            “Alright, the train leaves at 13:20, and it doesn’t look like it’s a very full trip, so you should be able to buy the tickets at the station if you’d prefer.” 

            “Aa.  I’ll contact you once I have a route planned.” 

            “Thanks, Heero.” 

-

***

-

**June 21 st 198 – Saturday – Sahara Desert – Southeast Libya, deep in the Expanded Rabyanah – Early morning hours**

            It was… like a dream.  If it hadn’t been so cold now with the biting night wind, or if he hadn’t been watching and rationing his water carefully, he might have thought it all a mirage or fever dream, but… somehow, it was _real_. 

            The last two days had been an insane brand of hide and seek south through the dunes on a level that Dana wouldn’t have believed was at all possible, before Robby had _done_ it with them.  After all, they had gotten so skilled at trying to find people doing just that, let alone the way they skirted a few encampments so closely…  The only answer Robby had been willing to offer was that he couldn’t have pulled it off with a larger group than they made up.  That he hadn’t tried this already because there had been no way he could take the entire encampment, over a hundred men, by this route.  He had been trying to scout the way for nearly a year, and he said he’d finally figured it out in April, but… 

            If Dana hadn’t already trusted in Robby more than be believed in the existence of his very soul, he would have thought the man had finally finished going off the deep end and was leading them to their deaths in the depths of the sands that even the Cambyses hadn’t dared to venture into.  After they had made their way past the southernmost encampment at a travel time that’d had them all gasping, he had headed still further south, into the nastiest part of the desert that was supposed to have raging sandstorms more often than not.  There was _nothing_ this way, nothing but dehydration and exposure and death… 

            …And what looked like the shadow of a giant military base, mostly buried in dunes. 

            There was something both humbling and deeply comforting about when Robby was so perfectly right and capable.  Their leader had known the code to open the great, shuddering door that led into a dark but shockingly clean and untouched metal hallway, which had then turned into the balcony of a cavernous space that could only have been used to house mobile suits, once.  After they had all gotten inside and shut the door, Robby had closed his eyes and taken a deep breath, relaxing into a slump, before he turned and smiled brightly, _genuinely_ at them. 

            It was the first time he had ever seen the man look anything close to happy, and it was like the stern, wild fighter he had followed through Hell itself began to simply melt away.  “Welcome to Adashia, everyone.”  His voice was quiet and his face tired, but there was a foreign warmth in it.  “I lived here with friends, once…  Rashid won’t mind if we liven the place up a bit, I’m sure.” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            Chaos was his hero – if he wanted to admit to having anything like a hero. 

            _Well, it’s Kasey, now._   He supposed saying ‘chaos’ like that sounded a little crazy. 

            When he’d first met the guy, he hadn’t expected much.  He’d assumed that before too long, they’d probably never see him again; or if they did, only rarely.  That was the usual pattern when someone reached out to the church – it was something about how people’s minds worked.  They did their ‘good’ deed and helped the poor church and the poor little orphans, maybe even went to a lot of effort with it.  Sometimes they’d even stay in touch for a handful of months, but then it got more spaced out, and kinda random.  Once they’d gone and done their ‘something good’, they tended to fade into the background and forget the little church existed for months or years until they felt guilty about something and tried to absolve themselves by coming in with donations.  Father Espen had explained to him when he was little that, for better or worse, those were the patterns that outsiders of the church usually followed. 

            Basically, most people thought God was something they only needed when things weren’t going their way, and could be forgotten otherwise. 

            But Chaos hadn’t been like that; he’d practically moved in as much as you could, without sleeping there.  And he’d never been a pain about anything, he’d just… been Chaos, he supposed.  He didn’t want or expect anything in return – he was just… there.  It had been nice. 

            It wasn’t exactly a surprise to find out he was the same way with the Devils too, though it was kinda unbelievable; another of those patterns most people held onto was that if they spent up their kindness in one place, they usually ran out of it in other places, with other people.  Men would treat their customers and beat their wives, try to give the world to their little sister while they mistreated strangers.  The best scenarios to hope for with people, on average, was that they showered attention on one person or group, and were just apathetic about everyone else.  There was a kind of safety in anonymity, because most of the time, people had to give a damn to want to try to hurt you in the first place.  At least, that was true so long as you looked poor and uninteresting; Amos was pretty sure he’d avoided more than one terrible situation just by looking too broke to be bothered with. 

            His father would have cried to hear him say that… but sometimes he wondered if it was his father’s pride that had killed him in the end, leaving him alone until Father Espen took him in. 

            He hadn’t been able to cry when the Father had told him he couldn’t stay at the church anymore.  Everything had frozen and shattered and he hadn’t known how to even breathe until Kay pulled him into a hug, and he realized why the mechanic was there in the first place.  He’d gasped out a sob without meaning to and held onto him tighter… because he’d known Chaos long enough to know he’d keep his promises.  That he wouldn’t lose interest like everyone else always had.  Kay actually _cared_ about him, and he knew that living with him, it would all turn out okay, no matter what happened.  With anyone else he would have assumed that it would only work for a few months and then he’d have to figure something else out, but Kay was… well, just different.  And now that it had been a while, he thought it was actually… nice… to not be living out of the church. 

            “Are you good on your homework yet?” 

            “Almost done,” Amos called back, focusing back on his textbook instead of the tool set Kay and Melissa had given him for his birthday last month.  It still seemed unbelievable, sometimes… but he’d gotten used to the idea that that was just how things might be from now on.  It was weird, but definitely not bad… and even if it _got_ bad he was starting to think it might still be okay. 

            Either way, though, he was starting to think he needed to get Nolan to help him if he wanted to pass English. 

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah**

            Mitchell sighed, leaning back in his camp chair and closing his eyes. 

            It could have been going far worse. 

            Charel’s encampment and the one further east than them had been settled nigh immediately, and the next closest – east, southeast, south – they pulled off ahead of schedule, thanks to Charel and his people.  From there – northwest, then heading northeast – it had been about what he’d expected… but he’d expected a hard hit of casualties and heartbreak. 

            Unfortunately, fate hadn’t disappointed him. 

            At least that first kid, Cory, was safe.  He was far from psychologically sound, but that would take time… and the fact that the boy’s family had gone missing with him hadn’t been surprising, though David had held out some small amount of hope.  He hated to send him into the system of orphanages, but there were so _many_ orphans now, and it would still be a kinder life than his last two years. 

            Charel seemed to be in a permanent state of scorn, but he knew Mitchell was doing as much as he could, and didn’t dispute him.  The Frenchman had to be admired for the fact that he was pushing ahead steadily regardless of everything, but David supposed that that was how he’d made it this far in the first place. 

            He wished he’d paid more attention to the man they all claimed had pulled them together, before he’d died.  Robby…  Robin Stanton, according to the list.  He had found a few possible relatives in the databases, but he had decided he wasn’t going to give any official notices until the core of the conflict was over.  He had enough shit on his plate, currently. 

            They were only three days in… it was going to get worse.  It was probably going to get _much_ worse, and it was all he could do to hope that there were more people across the Sahara like this Robby, or in the absence of that, enough who would turn on their fellow Cambyses if given an option.  He was a little low on that hope, however; Cory had tried to tell him that there were so few in the nearby camps because Robby had actively hunted for non-believers, but that seemed both improbable in terms of accuracy and highly optimistic.  He had nothing against optimism in general, but he wasn’t going to count on it any time soon. 

            He was done for the night, though, and he trusted the people he had on guard and staff… in a minute, he’d remember where he put his bedroll and do his meditation so he could get a few dreamless hours of sleep.  He vaguely considered calling Jake, but decided he wasn’t in the mood for any kind of cheerful company, _or_ feeling maudlin enough to talk about what anything that had happened.  Jake could just focus on the princess and politics, and he’d… get this done.  He’d get it done so that people could be safe again, and maybe some of these _kids_ could go home, and the victims could rest in peace. 

            If it wouldn’t fuck up the usable land in north Africa, he was tempted to seriously reconsider the idea of bombs.  If the rate of deserters stayed as low as in the five encampments after Roshan, it might truly be less loss of life overall. 

            But if he was truly starting to think that way, it _really_ was time to forcibly shut his brain down and sleep. 

            Groaning softly, he pushed himself back to his feet and headed towards one of the shuttles.  He could just use one of the standard issue bedrolls – he didn’t feel up to finding which shuttle he had last left his shit on.  Waving to people as he passed by, he muttered his intentions so everyone would know where to find him, and started obliterating all his stray thoughts. 

            He couldn’t afford the restless sleep that nightmares would offer him; he needed to keep functioning at his best. 

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert – Southeast Libya, deep in the Expanded Rabyanah – Adashia**

            After they had first arrived, he had only stayed conscious long enough to show everyone where the bathrooms and sleeping quarters were, and most had followed his example.  In order to get them this far so fast, he had had to push them to their limits… and himself well past his own.  When he had found Adashia again two months ago, their camp had been further southeast, and he had been able to take a more direct and faster route than he had this time – it was easier to hide himself than it was to conceal twenty-six men.  He hadn’t allowed himself to push any risks as far as he did alone either; it would have all been for naught if they were found, so he had given the group a far more buffer his last run. 

            When he had woken again, he had focused entirely on working out what functionality the base still had and fixing what problems he found.  The water was still good, and the heater too; everyone else had immediately gone to shower, at that point.  Thankfully, the attack that caused them to evacuate the town three years ago appeared to not have damaged the hanger irreparably.  Only one of the large hanger doors would still open, but that was all he needed.  That done, he had gone to search out the food stores, only to find that the others had beaten him to it and there was plenty of dinner for everyone, something to genuinely celebrate…  And then once he had eaten and was leaning back to relax, Vaska had teased him for still being unwashed, and he hadn’t been able to avoid it any longer. 

            Don had tossed him a pair of khakis and a t-shirt that he had found somewhere along with the novelties of fresh underwear and socks, and he hadn’t been able to do anything but stare at the clothes for a moment, wondering who they had belonged to… thankful on some level that they _weren’t_ his.  He hadn’t had to be startled out of his reverie to break it, though, so had found a razor and made his way to the bathroom… and avoided looking at the mirror. 

            He wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to face himself again just yet.  It would… break the dream.  Bring home just how twisted everything had become, despite the best intentions.  He was hanging onto a tenuous thread of sanity, and the world was all about to shatter again… and it might take him time to pick up all the pieces. 

            He didn’t want to see the boy who had once thought he could change the world for the better. 

            The razor had been a hopeful sort of waste when it came to his face, as he still hadn’t grown anything that could pass for stubble of beard, but it was nice to not have a ridiculous amount of hair under his arms again.  His father had insisted he always be impeccably groomed, growing up, and hair collected smell faster… he wondered how long it would be before his nose readjusted to differentiate true cleanliness again, or if it ever would.  The thick suds of the shampoo and soap was a luxury he had forgotten about entirely, never mind the strangeness of having hair so long that it was halfway down his shoulder blades.  _I should probably keep it long; it’ll frame my face differently._   He had been growing it out before Cambyses had taken him, after all.  He would need to get someone to cut it into something that looked purposeful, though, instead of just the current shag he was sure it made up. 

            He was done being a vagabond; he wasn’t going to look like one anymore either. 

            The time under the hot spray of water was spent collecting himself, making tiny, frivolous decisions that nonetheless made him feel better, more… solid.  This was going to be a new start again, and probably rough, but not… _new_ new.  This was old ground, things he was familiar with and good at, and he could follow his own morals and beliefs openly now.  He didn’t need to mask himself and trick and tie his own mind into knot after knot of deception just to stay out of suspicion and alive…  

            _I’m going to live by my own rules again._   Well, give or take a few details – like keeping from being recognized. 

            He stayed in the water until he felt as though he could face down any demon, whatever fate threw him next, before opening the shower stall door and wrapping an amazingly thick, fluffy towel around himself.  The towel felt smaller, like it covered less of him than it used to… and he wondered, suddenly, how much he had grown.  He hadn’t really cared before, but he was… eighteen now.  Cambyses had taken over fifteen months from him. 

            On a visceral level, he hoped that Colonel Mitchell razed them all to the very ground.  He knew better, that there _were_ people like his own… but he couldn’t let himself _care_ about the ones he didn’t know, or he’d truly go mad.  It was better that he have nothing to do with it. 

            _…Enough tangents._   Gathering his nerves in a tight grip, he leaned forward to wipe the steam away from the mirror in a large circle, and took a deep breath before really _looking_ at himself… and blinked. 

            A stranger blinked back at him. 

            Disbelieving, he snatched up a hand towel and wiped more of the condensation away to get a clearer image, turned his head from side to side, finally leaning forward so he was only a bare inch away and stared, reaching up to trace the scar along his left cheek – which was more faint than he had sworn it must be, by feel.  It wasn’t until his breath had fogged the glass again that the pure shock of it all broke. 

            He started laughing, and found he just couldn’t stop. 

-

***

-

**New Orleans, Louisiana – The United States**

            Hilde shivered a little as she punched in numbers, glancing back in the direction of the boys.  Reintroductions had been fun, and they had all moved into a safer area than where Xu had managed to land them before ‘Adam’ began explaining the situation, but if she waited to report any longer, the General was going to be furious, and Sally would line up to slap them both right after her once they got home.  She was still within bounds, though, and she wanted to make this call on her own, so she’d told Xu she’d handle it.  He seemed happy to talk to his old traveling companion again anyhow, even if he was trying not to show it; apparently Adam had grown since last year. 

            He’d grown in more than just the last year, by Hilde’s memory. 

            _“Are you safe?”_  

            “Safe and secure,” Hilde assured, wrapping her arms around herself as she stared out at what she knew had to have once been a bustling city.  She’d never been to Earth before _Libra_ , but she knew the pictures and stories as well as anyone.  Then, even if she hadn’t, it was obvious that this place had once been great, then desolated.  There were people here and there, here, but not as many as she would have thought.  She would have thought more people would be staying to the coastlines. 

            She really hoped that she was wrong.  If she was right, and people _were_ gathering closer to the oceans, then the conditions further inland were more than she wanted to actively think about.  She’d known coming to America would be depressing as hell, but knowing wasn’t necessarily preparing. 

            _“What’s going on?”_  

            “It’s complicated,” Hilde started.  “I’ll give you the layout in a minute, but first…  This Adam guy?” 

            Noin made a relieved sort of noise.  She’d wanted to know more about him, but Xu hadn’t been able to give them much.  _“Yeah?”_  

            Hilde glanced sidelong back at the brunette and shook her head a little, a smile creeping onto her face.  “ _Totally_ Trowa Barton.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	6. Altered Insight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena's rediscovering old friends and dealing with the results is making her reconsider a lot of her life; Noin proves she's running ahead on the same track. Meanwhile, things are more confusing than ominous in America, Marie is a trouble magnet (or has good taste?), and literally everyone is trying to make Mitchell's life difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Edit: Lot of little detail tweaking here, especially with geography and formatting, but nothing really changed from the old version for content.

**_-_ **

**_ Altered Insight _ **

**_\--_ **

_Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow’s speed._

_– Howard Nemerov_

**_\--_ **

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**June 23 rd 198 – Monday – Sahara Desert – Libya**

            “Mitchell?” 

            David woke at his name, then frowned when the first thing he saw was Charel’s face; he was positive it hadn’t been his voice.  However, before he could look to see who had called him, the Frenchman met his eyes solidly and swore, “I _didn’t know_.” 

            His stomach dropped as possibilities flooded him. 

            “Damn it, Razo, calm down,” Cassidy snapped.  “Colonel, it’s not the apocalypse, just a runaway.  The kid with Charel’s group and Layson took off into nowhere on one of the last camp’s demarked birds.  It’s upsetting, but hardly even qualifies as a loss – they took one of ones we hadn’t even started to look over to put back on the registry.” 

            “I didn’t know,” Charel repeated sharply.  “Charlie said he’d look after him and get him something to eat, and Cory can look after himself – I thought they slept somewhere else.”  He met David’s eyes again.  “I just found the note and went to Lieutenant Foreman immediately.” 

            Mitchell sighed as his brain fought to catch up.  That was…  _Great._   The urge to sigh and just roll over would be bad for moral.  “I believe you,” he assured Charel, who looked like he was about to start ranting about his noninvolvement.  Sitting up and glancing at his watch, he looked back to his second.  “Ignoring the humane end of it, material losses?” 

            “Minimal, like I just said.  They were smart about it.  The plane was out of the newly acquired; we don’t even have the serials on it.” 

            He caught the second part of the message in there.  _There’s no way we could track it._   Charel’s terror and indignation were fading into a purely wretched and miserable expression.  _Of course._   He’d been tentatively talking about taking Cory in himself once this nightmare was over with, asking about the legalities of it… 

            He debated if he cared to even ask about the note the kid had left, or at least if doing it might help Charel. 

            It felt callous, but he just… didn’t see how it would make a difference at this point.  “Good luck to him.”  This was chaos already; they’d sort out what was sortable as time went on, maybe find the guy who must have flown it, because there was no way the thirteen-year-old civilian had.  Shaking his head, he muttered, “Sorry, Razo.” 

            “…Me too.” 

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert, Southeast Libya – Adashia**

            Vaska grinned broadly as they came out of the plane, looking surprisingly different but still the same, clean and in fresh clothes.  “Hey, was starting to wonder when we’d see you.  First thing we worked on once we got here was making sure we could dock you guys okay, but it’s been a few days.” 

            Cory wondered if he looked different too… but he knew he looked different even clean now compared to clean before, so it didn’t matter much. 

            “We wanted to be sure you hadn’t gotten hung up somewhere,” Charlie returned.  “And the chance didn’t fall into our laps right away either, so we waited a bit.  In the meantime, it was safe and easy food for a few days, and some work for the cause, for me.”  He started to head for what were obviously the doors to the rest of the base, and Cory followed. 

            Vaska walked alongside Cory and ruffled his hair like he sometimes did.  “You look good too, kid.  You got someone to cut your hair, huh?” 

            When the woman had offered, he hadn’t seen any reason to tell her no.  It was strange to not have in his eyes anymore, but nice.  He tilted his head a little to each side, and Vaska chuckled.  “Good to have you back, even with what it means.  I think Robby’s missed you; he’s been a bit weird.” 

            He couldn’t help but smile a little at that, which made Vaska’s smile widen a little too.  He’d missed Robby… though now he might start to miss Razo. 

            “Who’d you get to tell Razo?” 

            “Jalee will in a day or two,” Charlie explained. 

            Robby had said they needed to be sure Razo’s reaction at Cory being gone was genuine, but that it would be cruel to let him think it hadn’t been planned for too long, because he would worry.  This way, no one had to lie more than they had to already, or do anything they didn’t want to in the first place.  His family was gone… and Robby had said if they were gone, then he could stay with him. 

            He wondered if Robby was still Robby, though, or if he’d changed yet.  Cory was fairly sure he was going to, but he didn’t know how much.  It would be okay, he was still him… just not Robby. 

            There… was music. 

            “What’s that?” 

            It was… haunting, lilting… yet there was something happy about it too. 

            Vaska laughed again, not something Cory was used to seeing so many times so close together.  “Apparently, Robby’s played violin all his life, and left the thing here.” 

            “That’s _Robby_?” 

            He laughed more as he took the lead, walking faster.  “He’s been playing it practically day and night since he found it – really complicated stuff too, from memory.  Seems like he brings the damn piece of wood to life.  That, or it’s putting more life into him, I can’t make up my mind.  He’s… bright.” 

            “Bright?” 

            Cory walked faster, only keeping pace with Vaska now instead of running ahead because there were too many ways to turn, and he wasn’t sure which way the music was coming from.  _Definitely not Robby anymore._   He couldn’t wait. 

            _“Obil’nyj,”_ Vaska returned, then blinked and seemed to remember he was trying to speak English.  “He’s… better, not dark.  Not happy, but…” 

            “Hopeful,” Cory suggested. 

            Vaska shrugged.  “You’ll see.” 

            Charlie seemed doubtful, but curious, and soon enough they were there.  Cory ran to him and threw his arms around him like he sometimes did, interrupting the song as the other brought his arms around to hug him back with the violin and all… and _laughed_. 

            He smelled like his mom’s laundry and cinnamon and car oil.  No blood smell, or sweat or ash. 

            He’d forgotten what everything was supposed to smell like, until Colonel Mitchell had come.  Fruit, and clean, and metal and machine and cloth and exhaust and _girls_. 

            Some of the women soldiers and the medics had had girly-smelling stuff. 

            It had been unbelievably _cool_. 

            “It’s good to see you too, Cory.” 

-

***

-

**Dachau, Germany**

            “Relena!” Olivia Dontelaine exclaimed as they came in, standing and smiling delightedly.  “It’s been a while!  I hear you bought Sarracenia.” 

            Olivia…  certainly didn’t look fifteen anymore.  _But neither do I,_ Relena thought wryly.  She’d had her hair bobbed short before, while now the thick auburn waves were a ways past her shoulders.  Her make-up was different, brows fine, and there was a distinct air of sophistication about the other young woman that the princess didn’t remember.  She seemed taller, or maybe just slimmer… or it might have just been the difference of clothes.  The black, high-waisted slacks with buttons fashioned over her abdomen and crisp white shirt with black vest were very… sharp, yet in an almost carelessly casual way. 

            She found herself wanting the outfit almost immediately, though she could do without the delicate-looking stilettos. 

            “It’s good to see you too,” Relena returned, moving forward to pull her into a hug.  She hadn’t seen Olivia since she had evacuated her students from Sanc.  “You hardly look the same, your hair’s lovely this length…  What, pray tell, is Sarracenia?”  She smiled as she pulled away.  “And if I did buy it, did I at least get a good bargain?” 

            The redhead laughed delightedly.  “I’d say!  I’m not the only one who’s grown; your own hair looks better short, I think, and your face has lost all its baby sweetness…  I don’t know that you’ve grown taller, much, but you probably have some height left; no Peacecraft or Weridge have been under 5’7 in at _least_ three generations.  As for Sarracenia, now.”  She frowned.  “Had the plaque been stolen?  Damned vandals…  My grandfather maybe six generations back christened the house you bought near Munich Sarracenia; his first daughter used to keep a garden of them on the grounds.” 

            Jake laughed.  “Only the ladies of Romefeller…” 

            Olivia blinked and looked around to the blonde man, and smiled brilliantly when she set her eyes on him.  “A pretty trap for the foolish and unwary,” she added.  “It’s a shame my family had to let go of it, but I’m glad it might see some use again.” 

            “It’s a lovely compound,” Relena confided.  “The top floor especially.” 

            “Could I come see it sometime?” Olivia asked immediately.  “My grandmother said it was lovely, and I’ve seen pictures, though I imagine you’ve changed it…” 

            “I’m sure we can arrange something,” Relena agreed.  “This is the head of my guard, by the way, Colonel Jacob Miller.”  Tilting her head at the man curiously, she asked, “Only the ladies of Romefeller what?” 

            He grinned broadly.  “Would keep carnivorous flowers and boast of it.” 

            …He likely had a point. 

            “ _Pretty_ carnivorous flowers,” Olivia argued immediately, smiling herself.  “Though I’m not sure how well they might grow in the weather Munich has these days.”

            Relena smiled.  It was a nice thought, but flowers?  “I haven’t the time to keep a garden, nor the inclination, I’m afraid.” 

            “Too true, with your schedule,” Olivia agreed.  She seemed to remember something suddenly and gestured to the aide who had been sitting in an out of the way chair near a different door than they had come in.  “In any case, you’ve gotten the masses to happily grow for you, and something far more useful than flowers, I must say.”  She smiled as she sat back on the little loveseat she had been on when they arrived… and began to remove her shoes.  “You’re far too practical for something so frivolous, I suppose.  A hound, however – that’s hardly useless.” 

            Relena paused, reran the last few seconds of conversation, then when that turned up no explanation, the last minute or so.  “I’m sorry?” 

            The woman Olivia had sent out hurried back in, so many things in her hands she must have had them already set aside to be so fast.  The redheaded noblewoman thanked her warmly as she grabbed the hair band she held out first, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail as she slipped off her second shoe with one bare foot.  “Well, I enjoy the social niceties as much as the next person, but you’ve business to be about, and it’s rude to keep a guest waiting.”  She pulled a pair of thick socks apart as the aide gently nudged aside the coffee table – it moved as smoothly as if it had wheels, somehow – and set the discarded stilettos on it as she dropped a pair of hiking boots at her lady’s feet.  “Thank you, Natalie.  Everything arranged out back?” 

            “As arranged as they get,” the woman returned cheerfully.  “I’ve some eggs and omelet makings ready to go in the pan if they’ve the time, too.” 

            “Lovely.  Have you eaten?” she asked suddenly, looking up from tying her shoes with surprising speed to look first to Relena, then to smile at Jake.  “I haven’t the slightest idea how, but Natalie can keep three frying pans cooking without the slightest hint of char.  I can manage enough for the rest of your men to breakfast too, if you’d like, but I still don’t know how much time you set aside for this.” 

            “We don’t need to leave for another ninety minutes or so,” Jake noted, sounding amused.  “I’m afraid we were only expecting those social niceties, though.” 

            Olivia blinked in confusion as her hands finally stilled, focusing fully on Relena again.  “You aren’t here for the yearlings?”  At the princess’ confused look, she covered a sheepish smile with one hand.  “Oh dear, then that _was_ a bit rude of me.” 

            “Apparently I ought to have mentioned that Duchess Dontelaine runs a kennel,” Jake added to Relena.  “I didn’t think too much on it, honestly.” 

            “Except that my best litter to date just finished their training three weeks ago, and requests have been flooding in,” Olivia explained.  “I just assumed…”  Again, that sheepish smile.  “My apologies.” 

            “It’s fine,” Relena assured her.  “You just caught me by surprise.  To be honest, the idea never occurred to me but,” she looked down at herself a moment.  “Well, I’m not wearing anything white, at least.  What kind of dogs?” 

            The other woman’s smile was brilliant as she went back to lacing her boots.  “Komondors.” 

            Relena didn’t have the slightest idea what that meant, but Jake blinked and grinned.  “Big boys, then; I couldn’t find a mention of breed before, or anything about an active litter.” 

            “I’m not breeding dogs during a food shortage unless I have customers willing to wait from conception to pup,” the duchess informed him firmly.  “It’s not as if they are Pomeranians; each pup eats as much as a child the same weight.”  She shrugged as she stood and picked up the thick flannel shirt Natalie had dropped on the arm of the couch.  “But you can’t pick your litter number and some people always back out, so I let it out that I had a few open to good homes.”  She smiled broadly at Relena.  “Had something of a boom more recently though, with all your farming projects.  The wolves are more desperate now than ever, after all, so I’ve three more litters on the way.” 

            _Three litters?_   Relena found herself wondering suddenly how many dogs compiled a litter; her parents had never allowed pets of any kind.  “That sounds…” 

            “It’ll be a handful,” Olivia agreed with a wink.  “Exhausting, yet utterly adorable; I’ll regret it before I’m halfway through and have to hire on an assistant or two, I’m sure.” 

            “So… breakfast?” Natalie prompted. 

            Jake looked to Relena, who shrugged a little.  “Let’s make it lunch,” he decided after a moment.  “We thought we’d keep your mistress company until eleven forty or so, so if we could plan to eat around eleven?  We have four more with us.” 

            “Sounds good; I’ll go get the details from them.”  

            “And while she puts everything together for me, I’ll lead you out to the kennels,” Olivia finished, moving towards the door Natalie had run out before and gesturing for them to follow.  “They’re worth seeing, if nothing else; we can retire back inside after introductions, if you find them disagreeable.” 

            “I wouldn’t mind seeing them,” Relena agreed easily.  It was, at any rate, turning out to be a more interesting morning than she had initially planned, and that was generally a good thing. 

-

***

-

**Marlin, Texas – The United States**

            Hilde rearranged her scarf so it was warmer somehow, maybe covering more of her face, and tried not to look back at the readout again.  The levels through the whole area had been confirmed as stable – a little too high to be comfortable with, but not dangerous.  Yet. 

            _We need more data before I can let myself fall into obsessively tracking every single rad of rise and fall,_ she told herself firmly.  She wasn’t that deep into the fear yet, and it wasn’t warranted yet.  They had taken all the possible extra precautions in any case. 

            The colonist in her wanted to scream in horror at the fact that no one besides the three of them seemed to be _noticing_ the increasing levels of radiation coming out of this small deserted town, and that when they had even pointed it out to the few locals they’d found, they were given entirely blank looks.  She understood it was Earth and all, and that the space-born equated knowing the local rads at all times in every direction to being the same as knowing whether or not you had _air_ , but… she had never realized how potentially massive the culture gap might be until this.  These people didn’t regulate their air, their radiation, and they _barely_ did something that could be called water regulation.  The mindframe was a luxury of living planetside that she didn’t think of all that often anymore, but apparently Adam had initially tried to tell those nearby, and he had only received uncomprehending looks and shrugs.  She wasn’t convinced they had any idea what radiation even _was_. 

            Hilde had known the ins and outs of all radiation safety protocol, how to understand the meters and calibrate the sensors before she could even _read_.  These people just… 

            _They’re just trying to survive and make do.  They understood enough that they didn’t want to go near there, and they listened when we told them they needed to evacuate and possibly never come back._   They _weren’t_ idiots, and on some level she knew she believed they were real, sensible people; they just knew _nothing_ about the dangers the spaceborn took in with their mother’s milk as a simple fact of life. 

            The knowledge didn’t change the fact that she’d just been slammed with a kind of culture clash that she hadn’t even thought existed, and it was still making her world spin. 

            This abandoned little village was letting out enough radiation that it might rival a nuclear power plant.  That was creepy without even diving into the possibilities of the original source, like, say, nuclear warheads in the bunker stationed underneath the town, which Adam had confirmed the existence of before deciding he needed assistance.  Bunker security was not, after all, your usual infiltration mission… and even if the amnesiac gundam pilot had the kind of specialty explosives that could break in, there was a chance that such a heavy-handed approach could make things worse. 

            Hilde _really_ hoped it wasn’t a leftover doomsday device that had finally been triggered.  They still stumbled across those damn relics from the pre-colonial era periodically, and they were touchy as hell.  Adam hadn’t been able to get more information than the fact that the bunker had listings for a total of six nuclear weapons on site… and the type was nonspecific.  Whatever was going on, considering the timing, it was more likely that people were involved than it was that the damn missiles or whatever had set themselves off – _fucking ancient technology_ – which was when Adam had decided to back off before even confirming the perimeter.  The fallout result from an accidental nuclear explosion would be pretty bad, considering the current condition of their atmosphere; all six blowing would probably have distinct effects for the other continents, and if one went off, it was likely to pull the others into a chain reaction. 

            If this was intentional, and someone was fucking with the weapons to shoot them somewhere specific – say Brussels or other key cities in retribution for the loss of North America – the results could be _devastating_.  And what kind of psycho would think messing with old nukes was a good idea?  The violent crazy-ass kind, who, by lack of the action so far with steadily increasing levels of rads over the past few months, was also a _moron_ who didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.  If anyone was down there, they had to be radiation sick, and probably had been for a while. 

            It was far from an ideal self-assigned mission, but Adam wasn’t sure if anyone else bothered actually looking through the satellite scans for America anymore; at least, the ones that could read more than pure visuals.  Hilde could totally see that, and kinda wondered what kick had gotten _him_ looking at it in the first place.  He’d said even if he trusted the Regime to handle the situation delicately enough, were it brought to their attention, they probably didn’t have the manpower with everything going on in the Sahara; Zechs was born and raised dirtside and might dismiss the importance of the whole thing.  He’d agreed when Chang brought it up, though, that if this ended up being over their heads too, they’d bolt and do just that anyhow; Peacecraft had gone and taken over the fucking world, he could bloody well take care of it and deal with the repercussions if he fucked up _again_.  They were doing this out of concern for the planet, not his damn reign. 

            And that seemed to just… be what Adam had been doing on his own.  Like Chang had tried to argue before, he was rogue, but his intentions were noble, and his methods damn efficient.  He thought being with an organization might weigh him down, and while Hilde kinda doubted that, she could see where he might get the idea.  She’d seen the kind of shit Duo was capable of all on his own, after all…  And that was the other thing. 

            He didn’t want to be called Trowa; said it wasn’t him.  Said he didn’t really remember much of anything before she and Duo had found him at the circus, a month or two before everything with _Libra_ came to a head.  He also wasn’t the shy boy she had met then, or the silent one who had let her hold his hand until she passed out and his suit was repaired on _Peacemillion_ , after Duo had run back out to battle.  Knowing what she did about him, she was a little surprised, looking back, that he had bothered… but she had appreciated it more than she could say even now.  She’d been half convinced she was going to die, despite Duo having pulled her ass out of the frying pan, and while she’d understood he had to leave, it had taken everything she’d had to not wail.  She’d been trying to hold it until she was sure he was too far away to hear her and come back when he was _needed_ on the battlefront, when Trowa had slipped in, sat down next to her, and gripped her hand.  She’d stared at him in surprise, and he’d only given her a steady look… but scooted his chair a little closer when she smiled. 

            It had only been five minutes, probably, before Sally’s pain killers started to work their magic and she fell asleep, but the contact had… made her feel a little less like the latest martyr.  She’d never had a chance to thank him; she didn’t really remember the next few days, and by then everything had all gone down the shitter and everyone was scattered. 

            She had wondered what he was doing, after he gave them the tipoff about where Heavyarms was hidden, but hadn’t put any more thought to it beyond the fact that he was alive and untraceable, like the others hopefully were.  Upon arriving in Louisiana, Xu had wasted no time in informing him that they had never lost their unexpected tail of Heero Yuy in their run across Eurasia, and that he was currently in contact with their group.  Adam in turn had been surprised, then amused and mildly curious, but that… was it.  He didn’t ask for more information, or offer any, or want to know if they knew about anyone else… like it didn’t even occur to him. 

            So at least for now, she decided not to tell him about Duo.  If she ever got the chance to get back to Amsterdam – which was looking less and less likely as time went on – she’d let Duo know, but this Adam guy… he didn’t even remember the war, beyond the last battle.  This wasn’t the clever guy that had conned Colonel Une and slipped information to Duo in his cell, or any of the other stuff Duo and Sally and Noin had told her about.  It was the confused kid they’d found on accident at the circus… only, well, not such a confused kid anymore. 

            She glanced back at the readout on the radiation monitor again, sighed, and picked her binoculars up, switching them to night vision.  She hadn’t seen anyone moving down there yet, but she wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not, especially since she knew Adam and Xu _were_ running around down there trying to scout out the area while the lighting was crap.  She was still trying to decide if it was a testament to the shitty setting, their skill, or her own possible lack thereof.  There was a reason she kept wanting to stare at the instrument she could read clearly and knew couldn’t trick her eyes. 

            She was pointedly thinking in terms of radiation levels, instead of the fact that they might be sitting on top of a nuclear apocalypse.  Even if it wouldn’t kill the rest of the world, it would certainly be _her_ damn apocalypse… 

-

***

-

**Near Coburg, Germany**

            “This is magnificent!” Olivia exclaimed, staring out the window.  “I’ve never gotten to see them so close; they’re bigger than I had realized…” 

            Somehow, the duchess had talked the princess into letting her come along on the surveying tour for the day.  Jake didn’t really mind –  the entire exchange had been rather amusing in his opinion – but Relena appeared to be mildly confused, or at least flustered.  She seemed unsure of exactly how to handle the other young woman.  As far as he’d gathered on her history, the enthusiasm Olivia was showing wasn’t new to his friend, but the sophisticated intelligence and logic surrounding it was stirring up some mental turmoil. 

            The attention she was trying to subtly favor him with was also amusing – apparently to Mai as well as him, seeing as the Australian major kept giving him suggestive looks behind the redhead’s back.  He was pretty sure Relena had been at an angle to see those too, but had evidently decided to pretend she was oblivious to that aspect of her new… friend or follower, Jake wasn’t sure.  At any rate, at least Duchess Dontelaine was appropriately subtle; anything more would have been downright embarrassing. 

            It was getting more difficult to keep a straight face, though… and he was losing his confidence in the idea that Mai could keep from laughing through _this_ , let alone something more awkward.  He was debating telling her that if she didn’t stop it with the looks, then she wasn’t getting the damn dog she’d half begged to be allowed to have on the compound grounds, but that would end up with her teasing him more in private. 

            And he would deserve _every moment_ of it. 

            The colonel checked his watch briefly.  They were ahead of schedule at least, despite the unexpected meal and guest.  Olivia was, if nothing else, quite efficient when she decided she was doing something.  If it flustered her so much, Lena could probably stand more exposure to the other noble just to get used to it, if not learn how to exude charisma as a technique to add to her own arsenal… 

 

-

_“Could I accompany you today?” the duchess asked hopefully, wiping her hands on a hand towel she had tucked into her back pocket as she stood from her crouch.  “Under two hours is hardly any time to catch up, and I had been wanting to see the progress with your amplifiers for some time.”_

_“I think not; it’s hardly a tourist site, Olivia.”_

_“I’m hardly a tourist,” Olivia protested smoothly.  “I may not be in my family’s inheriting line, but as a member of the nobility I have at least as much responsibility to the people as Dorothy Catalonia.”  The fact that Relena periodically had Dorothy travel in her place did not need to be stated; they both knew the other had caught the implications in the statement.  Her face was smooth and open, however, with none of the petulance or manipulation of the words themselves showing through._

_“Any visits including Dorothy have been planned, and nothing had to be changed to-”_

_“Your car seats eight, though; no more planning than that required, and I know better than to get in the way, Relena.”_

_“…I’m afraid I don’t understand why this interests you,” Relena admitted after a long moment, apparently not coming up with sufficient polite argument to that rebuttal._

_“It interests **you** , your Majesty; it interests you very much, which means it is every bit as important as my brother has been suggesting it is, perhaps more.  When a queen cares deeply for a matter, it is wise for others to follow her lead.”  _

_“I am no longer a queen,” Relena returned, nowhere near as coldly as Jake might have expected, having heard this topic come up more than once.  “I resigned my position to Treize Khushrenada, and shortly after his death, Milliardo dissolved the United Earth Sphere Nation entirely.  Even my status as a princess of Sanc is title only, as my brother currently controls our state, much as yours does your own family assets.”_

_“But I am no less a duchess for my lack of power, and you were no less a princess before Zechs Marquise reclaimed your country from the Alliance,” Olivia countered serenely.  “Monarchy is no temporary commitment of election.  The dissolution of a nation does not strip titles so long as it is remembered, and you have long stood for the ideal that we are not to abandon our responsibilities simply because we have been beaten back.  I learned that from you in Sanc, Princess, if you must insist on the lesser title.  The imposition of your brother’s regime does not mean we are not what we were – merely that the power table has shifted yet again.  You were once coronated Queen of the World, and as both a citizen of this world and a lady of the Dontelaine house, I would like to follow my queen’s lead, if I may.”  She bit her lower lip gently.  “Please, Relena…  I had worried you might have forgotten me, after all this time.”_

-

 

            That last little guilt trip had been the perfect touch; Olivia had to know outright that she _had_ been forgotten, but now that Lena had remembered her, she was going to use that lapse to her full advantage.  It was brilliant, really… and he could tell that his princess was already dissecting the tactics for later use.  After all, the tricks that worked _on_ you tended get your attention.  In any case, it was easy to see that Olivia had been selected from the many Dontelaine daughters to attend Sanc for more reasons than her close age range to Relena. 

            They had only been out of the car for maybe three minutes when the whole group seemed to collectively blink.  Despite the history of the past few years – or even his own life perspective, with how young he had come to certain aspects of his life – he was surprised to see a girl that appeared to be maybe thirteen hop down the last few steps of the ladder up to a machine into a pair of waiting boots with practiced ease.  For a moment he waited for anyone else to start on their way down, but it quickly became evident that she was alone… which was the part that made it odd, in the end.  She was probably older than she looked, but he hadn’t been under the impression that the Chinese might risk sending someone they thought might not be taken seriously, let alone leave them unsupervised, which meant she was far more than she appeared.  She didn’t have one of the usual nametags of the workers with her title of assistant. 

            That fact was amusingly reinforced when someone who _was_ labeled an aide walked by and asked something in a questioning tone, and the girl just kicked a loose clod of dirt at him; the man hurried off as she snapped back a retort. 

            Mai snickered.  _Oh dear._   He really needed to learn Mandarin. 

            The girl snatched up the clipboard she’d evidently left at the base of the amplifier and started to write before turning to see them… and blinked owlishly.  She wrote quickly and dropped the board again, then settled her bare feet deeper into her goulashes and began walking towards them, taking off her gloves and shoving them in one pocket.  “Sorry!” she called, grimacing slightly.  “My temper is short, and it was a stupid question.”  Holding out one hand, she offered, “My name is Yu Zi Lao; a machine deeper in was having problems beyond what I’ve been taught, so my father switched with me and asked me to meet you for him.” 

            Relena smiled and grasped her hand.  “Your father?” 

            “Engineer Kailì Lao.  I could… lead you to him?” 

            Her accent was near nonexistent, but she appeared worried that she might pick the wrong words.  At Relena’s accepting nod, Mai launched into a more complete response in Chinese, and the girl nodded and pointed before gesturing for them to follow.  She kept an easy conversation with Mai as they walked, completely unaffected by the presence of the noble women.  Before long she stopped and gestured to one mechanism, saying something else to Mai, who nodded.  “She doesn’t want to call out to him,” she translated.  “Incase he’s in the middle of something delicate.  He ought to be done or at least about to check if anyone’s below in a few minutes, though.”  She smiled a little.  “Apparently he hates being yelled to, so he makes it routine to check for someone waiting.” 

            Olivia tried to see up the ladder, but her angle was wrong, and she flicked her gaze to another.  Biting her lip a little, looking a touch embarrassed, she focused on Jake.  “Could I go up one?” 

            Of course she had to ask _him_ – the fact that he was actually the correct person to ask on this sort of outing not withstanding.  Jake glanced to Relena, who only looked faintly amused, before raising an eyebrow at the duchess.  “How’s your balance?” 

            “Um…”  She grimaced.  Jake sighed, debating a polite way to tell her no. 

            “I could… take you up that one?” Yu Zi offered, pointing to the nearest amplifier besides the one Engineer Lao was apparently in.  “Normally it’s only two people, but…  I’m light.”  She focused on Jake, evaluating.  “If you can watch her, I could take you.”  

            Lena’s expression was easygoing; she didn’t mind, evidently.  Mai gestured that she had this under control, signaling Vaughn to range back in more of a scouting position, so that if trouble were to find them – entirely unlikely – they’d know sooner.  Frustrated but willing to play along, Jake nodded to the engineer’s daughter again and started to walk after her, while the duchess made a happy noise and followed. 

            There was hardly any danger to be had out here, and Mai was more than capable in any case; there was a reason he’d chosen the major.  Olivia might well prove to be an important ally in the long run, and he’d readily admit that the view from above the crops _was_ pretty fantastic. 

-

***

-

            Relena shook her head slightly at her bodyguards, who all grinned back at her, shrugging.  In all honesty, Dorothy wasn’t much different; and for all that _she_ could tell that Jake was a little annoyed, she was pretty sure no one else present could… and it was mostly exasperation, not actual annoyance.  He wouldn’t get annoyed unless the redhead purposefully invaded his space after he made it clear he didn’t appreciate it, and whatever hand he kept on her to make sure of her balance up above, he was already planning that amount of touch.  Once he resigned himself to contact with a stranger, the man was implacable. 

            She wondered if Mai or any of the other new guards had noticed his overall aversion to being touched, yet.  It had only been a handful of weeks, and it was only being allowed through that normal barrier he kept that made her realize how _little_ the colonel actually cared for strangers or acquaintances.  She was fairly sure Lin had noticed, and Jerome likely had known before his assignment to her guard, but it wouldn’t surprise her if Cassidy had never realized before he left for Mitchell’s Strike Force. 

            “Ah, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft!” 

            Relena looked up and couldn’t help but smile at the very casually upside down man grinning at her.  “Engineer Lao, I presume?” 

            “I should hope so,” he returned jokingly.  “Would you like to see something unusual?  I understand you’ve been up a few of these before.”  He winked. 

            The princess laughed in return; it had been far more than a few, at this point.  She considered for a moment and nodded, signing to Mai and Marsden as she went to the mat at the foot of the ladder and bent down to unzip her boots.  There were weight limits on the structures, and as Yu Zi had noted, usually only two were allowed up at once.  Initially, Jake had insisted on being the one to go up, but once he had a feel for them and the rules inherent in not doing damage to the machines, they had convinced a few techs to let just the two of them up.  Eventually he’d agreed she was proficient enough that it was no true worry, and she’d climbed a number on her own with various technicians, but she had yet to speak with one of the two designing engineers that had come with the tour. 

            In any case, she was armed and fairly proficient with what she carried, now.  It wouldn’t come to that, but Jake had gotten her deeply into the habit of contingency planning. 

            Lao righted himself and settled on the edge of the trapdoor she was approaching with his legs hanging down, and shook his hair to right it.  It looked as though it just brushed his collar for length, and was kept in a multitude of braids she was more accustomed to seeing on a man of African descent, not Asian.  Humor snapped in his dark eyes.  His tan was a deep bronze that bordered brown, but that was the case with nearly all of those working on the amplifiers.  “Yu Zi didn’t give you any trouble, did she?” 

            “None whatsoever,” Relena reassured him.  “It’s nice to meet people who don’t see me and scatter like a bright light’s been shone down.” 

            He laughed at that.  “Nothing scares the girl, for better or worse.  She has a startling capacity for mouthing off when she thinks she can get away with it.” 

            “I might have witnessed a bit of that, but it was lost in translation,” the princess agreed in amusement.  “She made one of your technicians run away.” 

            Kailì snorted.  “Her mother has been teaching her marvelously; good practice for when she snares a husband.” 

            She briefly wondered if she heard that right, then snickered.  “Is that so?” 

            “A woman’s not worth having if she can’t manipulate her husband as she pleases, and no man would be good enough for her unless he could stand up to it,” the engineer explained cheerfully.  “A relationship is half dead if one does nothing but cave to the other.” 

            She grinned more broadly.  “I’ll keep that advice in mind.” 

            His eyes _sparkled_.  “It’s good advice for growing girls, I think, whether they take it so literal as Yu Zi or not.  You’re only a few years older, forgetting the difference in mind and heart.  Even if you are not looking to snare one for yourself yet, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft, be aware of the potential husbands trying to snare you.” 

            Relena tossed her hair a little at that; she wasn’t too far, now.  Idly, she wondered if the word ‘snare’ was so strong in his vocabulary for any particular reason.  He was missing his daughter’s lack of confidence in English, but it was definitely still not his first language.  “I have a man with a gun for that.” 

            He laughed delightedly at her response, pulling his legs up and pushing away from the trap door so she would have ample room as she finished the last stretch of ladder.  “That you do.  I was surprised not to see him; I was told he was blonde, but there were only ones with dark hair below.  Did he dye it?” 

            “No, he and Yu Zi are taking a friend up an amplifier for the first time as a favor; you might be able to see them from up there.” 

            “Ah.”  He was out of sight now, but she hard him stand and delicately step over to the far edge of the planed dish that was the head of the heat amplifier.  After a moment he noted, “I can see three people and colors, but little more; no one but Yu Zi could offer to take two up at once, though.”  There was a note of smug pride in his tone. 

            “How old is she?” 

            “Fifteen, now.”  He shrugged.  “And I think full grown, though she is upset when I suggest it.  I don’t know why; her mother is a _wonderful_ height, but most girls who want to compete with boys are disappointed to tilt their heads when they meet eyes with their competition.”  He tilted his own head to one side as she pulled herself up to a kneeling position on the deck and carefully closed the trap door behind her.  “Do you need a hand?” 

            “I’m fine,” she assured him, testing her balance as she got her feet firmly under her and rose to a standing position.  “What did you want to show me?” 

            “Ah, yes.”  He walked back around her and into the opposite direction he had gone to look for Jake and his daughter, motioning for her to follow.  “A few things.  There were three panels here that broke in an odd way, maybe hail; you can see more of the inner parts of the pane, so I can explain more of how they work.  A few techs told me you were interested in such things.  I have been trying to decide if I can fix some for half an hour now, and I think some I need to replace.  It’s over here.”  He looked over his shoulder at her briefly.  In a quieter tone but still a normal range voice, he added, “I also wanted to give an apology from a friend; he would have liked to meet you, I gather, but it was too risky for him to visit this continent.” 

            At the change of tone, she debated if this was something the engineer felt sore about, perhaps, or if it were actually significant in some way.  Outwardly she stayed calm, but her heart began to beat fast.  “Anyone I know?” 

            “He said you never met directly, but you were rather close to a number of his allies in the war, and that you considered each other allies by the time _Libra_ fell.  He fought both armies in that battle.” 

            Butterflies were fluttering in her stomach now and she followed Lao quickly.  The only people who had technically fought both armies were those who had been aboard _Peacemillion_ , and the one who would have been actively fighting and welcome to asylum in China to escape the price on his head…  “Wufei?” she murmured softly, close enough to the engineer’s back that he would hear her. 

            He turned to face her and smiled, nodding.  “Engineer Wu Long.  He said he wanted to pass a message to you, provided I could do so privately.  Discretely.”  He smiled and squatted to run his hand over one of the many pearlescent tiles.  “This is one of his designs, also.  Beautiful, isn’t she?”  Lao shook his head a little, looking wistful.  “The boy has such _talent_ with machines… and leaving the war behind for a high calling such has mended him very much.” 

            Relena focused on the layers and perfectly placed mirrored pearl tiles as the realization really sank home, and found herself smiling.  That was another of them confirmed as safe, then, and he was making a staggering contribution to society.  She kept track of the competition between the engineers, as she still offered bonuses to the best increases in efficiency; Wu Long’s name was behind nearly half of the successful designs and new innovations.  A few more pieces clicked too…  such as why she had never been allowed to meet the engineers before the two that had been recently sent to Europe.  China was keeping their asylum to him secret, but holding up their bargain far better than if they had tried to be open about it. 

            “That is good to hear.  I have only heard back from one other of his old allies, so you can tell him Duo is well, if you like, and that his identity rests safe with me.” 

            Kailì Lao looked up at her and nodded.  “He said it would, as long as you heard the news alone.”  He shook his head a little, braids swaying.  “But his new life was not the message; just a way for you to trust.  He was convicted of a crime that he does not greatly care about, but he says it is important for you to know the truth.” 

            “What crime was not also laid to the other four as well?” Relena asked, confused. 

            “The murder of Treize Khushrenada, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft,” the engineer muttered, lowering his voice even more.  “It was never committed.  Treize lives.” 

-

***

-

**June 24 th 198 – Tuesday –Sahara Desert, Southeast Libya – Adashia**

            There was a certain casual artistry to be had when crafting false identification.  I learned that I had a natural talent for it when Instructor H first recruited me, and slipping all the details together had been fulfilling, in a naughty sort of way.  I had had various false identification papers since I was four or five and my father began to worry about someone trying to hurt the Winner family through his heir whilst I stayed with this or that sister and her family, but they had always been presented to me finished and perfect.  Maybe I had picked up on it so quickly because I picked up the habit of looking for the flaws, drawing comparisons, when I was bored and stuck indoors… but I had always loved my L1 passport, being Katriel Dimardin, for sentimental reasons.  My brother-in-law there had always let me play with his construction MS in the asteroid fields Tamelia had inherited.  Of course, once I had proven I had some skill in one, my other sisters had let me do similar things, but Anton had been the one to pull me into his lap in the cockpit and teach me when I was five.  Piloting was the first thing I really believed I might be good at, growing up, and Anton had indulged me even when I was told it was an inane hobby for a future executive. 

            I had cried when Tamelia told me it was time to go back to L4, and she had had to pick me up and carry me onto the shuttle while I sobbed my eyes out.  I got over it, of course, but it was a while before she invited me back; I think she was worried our father might think she was trying to steal me away from him for her poorer little region of business.  Prestige mattered little among my sisters, but she was considered to have married so ‘beneath her’ that they expected her to try to snatch up opportunities for advancement that the others thought too low to contemplate. 

            For years, in some little part of my mind, I’d wished and waited for my father to maybe pull me into his lap like Anton, only at his desk, and show me the papers he spent so much time on.  But whenever I started to ask him too many questions about something, the following week another sister would be there to take me home with her for a month or two. 

            I wondered, sometimes, about how happy I might have been if Tamelia _had_ taken me.  She was one of the ones who had decided to forgo artificial birthing and the risk of pregnancy, so she might have even been able to convince our father that I needed a stable mother figure where she could focus on me as an only child.  But at the same time, I _know_ Tamelia.  She probably tried, and didn’t tell me when the gambit failed – yet another attempt by my sisters to stem the fracture of my relationship with our father. 

            In the end, it had been Kilani and her husband who started taking me through the ins and outs of business and strategy, not Zayeed.  It had been Amilie who taught me to weave through the dance of politics and social manipulations, Datania who drilled me in Arabic, French, Italian, and Japanese, Courtney and Frederick who always insisted I remember to take time to play with their children, develop hobbies…  Tricia who taught me how to be cutthroat yet genteel at the same time and rewarded me only when I was clever and cunning.  Our father never had the time, and the rest of them passed me around like the latest accessory.  I adored my sisters, but by the time I was twelve I was so sick of the way they accepted everything and simply told me to give Zayeed time, that I began turning down all their invitations and staying stubbornly in my father’s line of sight.  When nothing changed and my sisters only continued to come and go, and he seemed to make time for each of them for business reasons… I began to wonder if I had any worth at all. 

            As I grew older it became more and more clear that it had been our mother who had cared, and our father who was more interested in what _use_ each of us had for the Corporation… and as supposedly incapable as I had been, in spite of my sisters’ coaching, all of my own worth was set in the future.  I was an heir, after all, and the man’s older children had been more than willing to teach me everything I needed or wished… apparently there was no reason to bother putting in the effort just because I was his _son_.  So I had decided to _give_ the man something to tip off the bloody burden of his responsibility towards me and actively tried to be rebellious…  and at every dismissal of ‘youthful indiscretion,’ I had only grown more and more jaded. 

            When I ran away at thirteen and managed to be taken hostage by the Maguanacs, I suppose I had just given up entirely.  Even after Rashid literally knocked some sense into me and I went home, I never regained any faith in my father; I just decided that my life didn’t need to revolve around my family anymore, and it was time to strike out on my own.  The fact that Zayeed didn’t even notice I was hiding Instructor H on a nearby asteroid and funding the construction of a _gundam_ under his nose, that I was training myself into the ground every moment of the day in preparation for _war_ , had only driven the point home further. 

            Considering how much it hurt when he died, I suppose on some level I had still hoped he would one day see me instead of his obligations through me, and understand my perspective.  That we would one day reconcile and be the kind of family I dreamed about as a child.  But when I went home, all the fractures had deepened, and when a sister who had always been too busy with schooling to see me had died along with him, defending his actions… everything had _shattered_ into a million pieces. 

            I took a deep breath and tried to redirect my thoughts back to the papers and plastics I had been able to find.  I probably needed the time to brood and sort through my emotions after so long of being terrified that if I stopped bottling myself up I would get us all killed, but I didn’t like to remember who I had been while I feverishly built Wing Zero.  I could never decide if those memories made me want to sob or laugh hysterically or scream myself raw, none of which I really felt the need to indulge in currently.  In truth, I had mostly sorted myself out over that before I went to Sanc. 

            No, now I needed to find a way to cope with the time spent carrying Heero across the globe while he actively contemplated blowing a hole in his head every other week… coping with the fact that every time I thought he’d finally do it his sea of emotions swirled into worry and pity and resolution.  I needed to decide if I could really live with everything that had happened during those sixteen horrifying months with Cambyses, and if I couldn’t, what I might be able to do in order to repent.  I seemed to be more balanced and level-headed than I had even come close to hoping for… perhaps I had inherited Heero’s talent for hopeful pessimism sometime along the way.  What I had done willingly in the colonies was arguably worse than what I had been forced to in the Sahara, but it had been so much more… personal.  Visceral.  It was one thing to know there had been thousands of people living in that exploding structure, and another entirely to watch the light die in a woman’s eyes as she bled out. 

            …Whoever the fuck Quatre was or would be in the future, I had already decided I could _never_ be Robby again.  I needed to bury him and focus on those that had been saved… because unlike when I had slaughtered entire colonies, I _had_ saved people with my actions this time.  I had thought I was breaking myself into smaller pieces than I could ever hope to pick up again, but all things considered… 

            …I wanted to know _why_ it seemed so easy to just keep walking.  I was worrying myself sick, waiting for the shock to wear off and the other shoe to drop, but I was starting to wonder if it _would_.  It felt like finding Heero again was the first step in understanding this all.  He had seemed better, before Cambyses took me… different.  Considering how drastically I had been forced to change over the past seventeen months, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had continued to stagnate or not. 

            I had enough in the way of materials and templates that I knew I could craft five nigh flawless passports for a few different countries, six if I was careful, maybe seven if I made no mistakes along the way.  Of course, there were twenty-six of us here, but Adashia had been well stocked when we had abandoned it, and it had escaped notice from the scavengers until now; the men had also started to scrounge through the city’s ruins, and it was hard to say how much they might find.  Whoever stayed behind could live comfortably for up towards a year, and I couldn’t imagine it taking more than two or three months to secure solid new identities for them so they could return to the real world without suspicion. 

            I had old contacts I could revive… I had sisters who had escaped scrutiny because they had been off the records since they married, if not before.  Obvious monopolies had a way of upsetting small business, after all, and all of us valued personal privacy very highly.  Many of them wouldn’t have had to change anything about their lives at all in order to escape Peacecraft’s notice – I could smugly imagine his frustration at realizing he could only successfully hunt down four or five of them before all but two of those had slipped between his fingers.  If nothing else, our father’s indulgent neglect taught us to look after each other, and I had no doubt that if they found a hint of me, they would only be too happy to sweep me away as well. 

            If I would let them, at least. 

            I might have considered it before… but not anymore.  No, now I had a score to settle.  I had wanted my own life and I had gotten it in the end, for better or worse, and I was going to damn well finish what I had started, or else what was the point of any of it?  They would understand that… and I had no doubt that they would back me, especially now that Father was gone.  Zechs had done his best to ruin us out of spite to me, and he _had_ ruined the world and so much else.  Once I managed to establish safe contact, first with my sisters, then Heero, the Maguanacs, and the ones who had gone with Colonel Mitchell that still wanted to follow me…  I was still only _one_ of the forces moving against him.  If I was brutally honest, I doubted he would survive another two or three years; I didn’t have nearly as big of a grudge as others. 

            Whatever Zechs might think of the past two years, this was still only the beginning. 

-

***

-

**June 26 th 198 – Thursday – Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            Marlé grinned at the view, more than pleased with her perch.  Amsterdam was an old city, and from here she could just see the ports as well as a few of the larger buildings around the city and the general ramshackle sprawl – it had character.  Most of the cities in Europe did, and she was finally getting used to the crazy designs in place of the smooth grids she was used to, but they often seemed to each have their own flavor.  She hadn’t fully made up her mind about Amsterdam yet, beyond that she liked it. 

            _Now if only Leah hadn’t broken the camera._

            She hadn’t liked the notion of Odin leaving her behind, but she’d understood, and Moira Srona had already been planning on taking Anne and Leah on a tour around western Europe through the end of the Cambyses campaign.  Israel was a little close to the action, after all, and given his reputation, Dr. Srona imagined he might have less reputable patients in greater numbers than he was used to… patients of a more violent disposition.  His sons didn’t live in the area, and apparently he and his son-in-law had decided to lock down the Srona’s house while they sent the women out of town and stayed at the Moore’s condo.  As Moira had explained, they would rather come back to a ransacked house than deal with the possible trouble of desperate men… and apparently it had been time for a vacation anyway.  Marlé was welcome so long as she didn’t mind sharing a bed with her five-year-old granddaughter. 

            She didn’t mind, really, and the family was good company, but…  _I guess I’m not really used to that kind of company,_ she decided.  That and since she had started to travel with Odin, she hadn’t had a reason to put up with company when it bothered her…  And since she was only really used to Odin and her mom anymore, she hit a point where she _had_ to get away from the doting mother, grandmother, and spoiled little girl.  The older women didn’t seem to mind so long as she wasn’t gone for more than two hours without making some kind of contact, which she was grateful for.  She would have lost it by now if they had tried to smother her. 

            Since said five-year-old had managed to snatch and drop the camera, however, Marlé had decided to take it with her, with half a mind to find a nice rooftop and see if she could fix it with what tools she had in her pack.  That had turned out to be a lost cause, though; she was in entirely over her head.  She was used to phones now, but the electronics on this were different… but the view was nice. 

            At the same time, her stomach informed her it was about time for lunch, and she’d forgotten to find something before trekking up here. 

            Making a face, she tucked what stuff she’d laid out around her back into her bag and made her way down.  This was one of the worse neighborhoods, really, but she’d decided to go see the square where the riot had happened before looking skywards.  In any case, she supposed it meant the food was on the cheaper end too, which was just as well.  She wasn’t wearing anything nice enough to catch notice, and so long as she kept her mouth shut they might not think she was a tourist – just someone from out of town.  It gave her a pretty good opportunity to people watch as she figured her stuff out… and she was glad to see that despite the place’s reputation, the locals didn’t seem to be that depressed. 

            So much for the veracity of the news, but she’d already known _that_. 

            There hadn’t been anything about Dam Square that stood out, not even a sign to say what had happened last December.  She wasn’t sure what she had expected, really, but there wasn’t even any damage that showed through six months later.  It was a very ordinary place on all counts… which only made the whole thing worse, she supposed.  If it could happen and disappear so completely from here, chances are it could happen just about anywhere else too. 

            “Hey!  Kid!” 

            Marlé stopped and blinked down at the man in the khaki militia uniform yelling at… yeah, at her.  _Hm.  Okay, I deserved that._   Most people didn’t appreciate people walking along the tops of walls; she just hadn’t been thinking.  Smiling apologetically she carefully dropped down and trotted over to him.  “Sorry,” she muttered sheepishly in German.  “I’m a little lost, and, um…”  Thinking quickly, she slung her pack off one shoulder and yanked the smashed camera out of the side pocket.  “I was hoping I might see a sign for a repair place.”  It was as good of an excuse as any, and she might as well get something useful done. 

            The blonde man’s expression turned from irritated to exasperated as he considered first her earnest expression, then the very broken gadget.  “What did you _do_ to it?” he asked, sounding a little amused.  “Did you use a hammer?” 

            She snickered at that herself.  “Might as well have; my little cousin managed to drop it off the balcony.  I think I can save the files on my own, but I was hoping I could maybe get it fixed.  It’s my grandma’s.” 

            He shook his head a little in disbelief, muttering something under his breath in Dutch that she couldn’t really follow, before gesturing for her to follow him and starting to walk.  “I know a good place near here, if you want.  They’ll tell you if they can do anything about it before you spend the time or waste money.  The price is good too.” 

            “Thanks.”  She moved after him.  “Sorry!  You’re not going out of your way, are you?” 

            “I haven’t started my shift yet anyway,” he dismissed.  “My partner and her husband own the place, so I might as well meet her there.  They run a good business; good people.” 

            Marlé nodded amiably enough, glad to have avoided the actual issue. 

-

***

-

**Marlin, Texas – The United States**

            Adam still couldn’t make up his mind if they were getting good signs or bad ones. 

            It had taken over two days to scout discreetly through the area and find the bunker entrance without being found by any possible surveillance…. surveillance which it had turned out _didn’t_ exist.  He wouldn’t want to take back the caution even if he could, but this was getting increasingly weird. 

            The entrance was _sealed_. 

            That on its own indicated that this was more accidental than anything, but at the same time, it didn’t make any actual sense. 

            It was sealed from the _inside_. 

            And there was no doubt about it, the radiation was definitely coming from inside. 

            “…We’re going to have to break it open and go in totally cold, aren’t we?” 

            He didn’t look away from the door, but he let the ironic amusement he was feeling leak through his tone.  “Right in one.” 

            “Joy.” 

            He smirked.  “Well, hardly a ‘hallelujah.’” 

            Hilde snickered.  “Shit, just don’t get me killed, that’s all I’m asking.” 

            He raised both brows, glancing back at the woman.  “That’s a lot to ask.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “I’m sadly used to that attitude, you realize.” 

            He grinned at that, then shrugged, motioning at the door.  “I’m confused by this, honestly.” 

            “Comforting, Adam.  Very comforting.” 

            “I try,” he returned blandly. 

            She snickered again, coming up to stand next to him, her hands deep in her coat pockets.  “Thankfully, I’m still a daredevil…  and this is weird, but it could be worse.” 

            “Definitely.” 

            “You’re sure it might not be a better idea to just ditch it, though?” 

            He sighed.  “Any projections I’ve managed to get done for the effect of even one nuclear blast here vary wildly with the atmosphere as is, let alone six.  With the storm patterns and the fact that so many people _are_ still alive out here, not even going into the fact that we might be able to come back to the Americas in force in a decade or two… the risk to us is still reasonably low, from what we’ve found.” 

            She sighed and nodded.  They were both silent for a minute or so before she shifted her weight.  “What are the chances of other entrances that aren’t sealed?” 

            “Very likely,” he admitted.  “But we’re not going to be able to find them, from what I could work out of the design.  They’re supposed to be secluded and hidden… and there’s enough collapsed structures here that we could look for weeks.” 

            Hilde nodded again as though she expected that response.  “I kinda figured.  You can see what’s leftover from a big fire that swept through a while ago…  maybe a hurricane or two.  In some ways, we’re lucky we found this one as fast as we did.”  It was his turn to nod in agreement.  She sighed exaggeratedly.  “Well, let’s go back to camp and get our last guaranteed night of sleep, then.  If there’s no cameras, we might as well figure this shit out while it’s daylight.” 

            “Yeah.” 

-

***

-

**Burgas, Bulgaria**

            “That,” Noin noted happily as she dropped her bag on the bed, “Had to be one of the smoothest operations I’ve been party to since… since I turned seventeen.” 

            Odin nodded agreeably, moving to check the bathroom to see if it had a bath, more out of habit than anything else.  He hadn’t pushed his leg past its capacity for a while now, but he found himself always planning for it.  On some level it still stung that he had to plan around such a major weakness, but that was the same part of him that used to be upset when he failed to successfully die in the course of a mission, so he didn’t take it very seriously.  In any case, it was habit and contingency, knowing himself and his available resources, not a need.  He could make just about anything he needed of a situation if it came to it, but he’d gotten to like the idea of actual preparation since he had first fallen to Earth in Operation M; it didn’t take as much trouble and effort as he used to think. 

            It had been a relatively good week, all things considered.  Xutao Chang and Schbeiker were in America…  with Trowa, which was something to look into.  It made more sense why the pattern of evasion had seemed so familiar, when ‘Adam’ and Xutao had been running from Treize’s men last year.  Lucrezia had refrained from giving him the details, but he could only admit to curiosity, not true interest.  Trowa would make sure that any problem further west was handled effectively, or he would make it clear that he couldn’t.  Even with his memory gone, Odin doubted that aspect of the other pilot had changed. 

            “I want to shower before we go get food and act innocent for the evening,” Noin announced, pulling a clear bag with various bottles in it out of her pack.  “With my hair this long, though, I take more time than I used to, so you can go first.” 

            “I prefer to wash before sleeping,” Odin returned easily, dropping his own bag on the bed and undoing the laces.  Recovered or not, it helped him sleep easier to loosen the muscles as much as possible.  “Tell me if the hot water runs out early.”  He hated it when that happened, and since this room only had a shower, it wasn’t so easy as with a tub.  He would likely take far longer than Noin, no matter the length of her hair. 

            “Suit yourself,” she returned cheerfully, not looking up as she gathered a change of clothes.  “Good work today, really.  I won’t be long.”  She grinned broadly when he nodded easily again and strode purposefully for the bathroom, locking the door behind her.  A moment later, the sound of the water started. 

            He liked Noin; she didn’t bother trying to press social… politeness.  She showed courtesy, respect, and genuine emotion, and didn’t try to fit anyone into a mould that suited her better.  He had noticed it in Sanc, but had assumed it was at Relena’s request and her own need of his cooperation in the kingdom’s defense.  Now that he had spent more time with her, he could see that the easygoing acceptance was a part of her personality. 

            It was nice to not have any… expected ‘role’ pressed on him. 

            Retrieving his laptop, he settled at the desk provided by the hostel and began making sure no trace of his illegal presence had been found on the base he had visited earlier that day.  He thought his work had been nearly flawless, but he had learned the hard way that a single inconsistency could unravel an entire plot, and caution had a way of balancing his skills.  There was no reason for the Regime to suspect his infiltration, but since he had the time, there was no reason not to be sure every step had been perfect. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            _“Danke,”_ Marlé muttered again as she ducked in the doorway of the shop, biting back a sigh as the militia man followed her.  She intended to do exactly as she had told him, but still, she didn’t like to have someone who had seen her act inappropriately at her back.  It was doubtful, but there was always the chance that someone might recognize her despite her longer blonde hair and how she had aged, if they thought about it long enough.  Despite being almost thirteen, she still hadn’t started her period and hadn’t grown in any way except maybe height, and that was a definite _maybe_.  Her mother had said that fewer people would be likely to draw similarities between her and her photograph once she started to gain a woman’s figure, but there was little sign of _that_ happening anytime soon. 

            A brown-haired boy a little older than her looked up and smiled when he saw her.  _“Goedemiddag.”_  

            She smiled at him, stepping forward with Moira’s camera, and decided to go with English; most of the locals here were fluent, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to go over the technical details she needed to on what she’d figured out in German.  “Hi.  Could you take a look at this for me?” 

            “Of course.”  He focused on the man who had come in with her briefly and raised his brows.  “Melissa took Rina to work; she won’t come back before going to meet you.” 

            He cursed and turned quickly to leave.  Marlé watched him go, debating if she was bothered that he hadn’t said anything, before glancing back at the boy.  He shrugged and rolled his eyes a little, so she smiled.  “I’m Marlé.” 

            “I am Amos.  Welcome to New Renew.  Sorry for Daron; is be rude.”  Picking up the camera, he frowned.  “What…” 

            “I _so_ had nothing to do with it,” she protested immediately. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Relena looked up as Jake’s phone rang, glancing back in the direction of the bathroom.  He was taking Dorothy out to the clubs again tonight, and was getting ready.  When he didn’t immediately come out at the sound of the phone, she reached over and picked it up, looking at the caller ID, before smiling and answering it.  “Hello, David.  It’s good to hear from you.” 

            _“Hey, Lena,”_ her old bodyguard returned tiredly.  _“You’re having a good evening, I hope?”_  

            “Boring, but productive,” she returned, standing up.  “You sound exhausted.” 

            He snorted humorlessly.  _“’Exhausted’ was a few days ago.  There has to be a better term for what I am now, but I can’t seem to think of one.”_  

            She smiled sympathetically as she moved into the bathroom.  “I’m sorry to hear that.”  Dorothy was up at one of the vanities, doing God only knew what with her make-up, and Jake was nowhere in sight, but the door down to the master suite was open.  Starting down the stairs, she asked, “Will it be over with soon?” 

            He sighed heavily.  _“Not as soon as I could hope, but we’re making progress.  Listen, Lena, it’s wonderful to hear your voice, you’re a balm on my soul, but-”_  

            “I’m looking for him,” she assured her friend.  “You called his phone, David, not mine, there’s no need for the flattery.” 

            _“I would **much** rather be there with you,”_ he returned earnestly.  _“I’d be lounging on some couch in that decadent house of yours.”_  

            “Well, you’re certainly welcome to, when you have the time.”  Moving out of the walk-in closet, she didn’t see anyone, but her colonel’s shoji screens were shielding his corner of the room.  “Jake?” 

            “Just a moment,” he called back quickly.  “That David?” 

            “The very same,” she agreed warmly.  Hitting the mute, she added seriously, “I think he could really use some company, Jake, he sounds awful.”  She pressed the button again; hopefully Mitchell wouldn’t have noticed she had done it at all. 

            The blonde colonel moved around the screens in the same form-fitting pants he wore each time he took Dorothy out on the town and an undershirt he was still tugging down to his waist.  He held out his hand for the phone and she handed it to him before heading over to her nightstand, forcing her movements to be casual.  There was something to be said about that outfit… or really about Jake in general, if she were honest… but it struck her as a poor idea, especially now.  She’d gotten over her silly little crush on him before; she could work around the newer attraction worming its way around her chest.  If her bodyguard had noticed it yet, he had the grace to not be obvious about it in turn.  He had been very good about that the first time around too, for which she was grateful.  It was only worse this time for the fact that she knew him far better. 

            In any case, if he was almost finished dressing, she could lock him and Dorothy in the bathroom in a minute and change into her pajamas; she still had work to do, but now that the sun had gone down there wasn’t any reason to stay in the pantsuit she had worn all day.  She could change and make some tea for herself before finishing the last of the authorizations on today’s work requests, then maybe take up Mai on her offer of watching a movie.  Something good and mindless sounded perfectly wonderful, and for once she didn’t have to be up early tomorrow.  She hadn’t really considered movies in some time, but Mailin had been more than happy to remind her of ‘the values of periodic vegetative states’ and offered to find something sweet enough to chase all the menfolk on the base away.  Mu had claimed disinterest as well, but Relena had found that in her free time, the American woman tended to bury herself in massively-sized paperback novels, not anything from the more popular media. 

            She liked to have Mu at hand when she was working; there was a calming sort of kinship about the other woman’s presence, and they settled into a comfortable silence.  She greatly enjoyed Mai’s company too, but in an opposite sort of way; the Australian woman had a way of distracting her from morose moods the way Jake could, and firmly believed in indulging for the sake of stress relief.  She didn’t slack off, but she certainly did her best to live it up too.  Mai didn’t much believe in doing anything partway. 

            It was good to have other women around again.  The shift in company wasn’t something she had entirely realized she missed; or at least, that she hadn’t realized she missed so much as she truly had. 

            The conversation between the two colonels quickly turned to Japanese, but that was normal, for them; neither of them liked to have personal conversations where they might be heard, and they spoke the Asian language fast enough that you had to be truly fluent to follow it, which she wasn’t.  Jake had teased her a little for that, because having lived in Japan for so long growing up, she really _ought_ to know more than she did, but she couldn’t change the past.  Focusing on her vanity mirror, she considered her hair as she listened and tried to see if she could catch just a word here or there.  It needed a trim soon… idly she debated if she ought to try a different style.  It was getting blonder and blonder the same as Jake’s was doing, with how often they had been out in the fields and even on top of the amplifiers themselves… 

            _I still needed to tell Dorothy about Wufei._   She was the only one she felt she _could_ share the information with, at this point, but the opportunity to talk to her without Jake nearby had yet to come up, and she didn’t trust the other woman not to react at least somewhat theatrically, so Jake needed to not be in even the same building if she could help it.  He had a way of putting things together from the most minimal details. 

            She wanted to be able to trust him with this kind of information the way she did everything else, but the fact was, the risk that he might give the information to her brother was still relatively high.  He might not, so long as she asked, but as well as she knew him now, she also appreciated how excellent of a liar Jake was; she would hardly have any reason to convince him to keep a secret for her in contrast to his loyalty to a childhood friend.  He had been more than willing to flout Milliardo so far, but he _believed_ in the reasoning and necessity perhaps even more strongly than she did. 

            He had helped Zechs actively hunt the gundam pilots after _Libra_ fell, and she knew exactly how resourceful her colonel was when he set his mind to something; she was _not_ about to open that can of worms if she was anything less than perfectly sure.  She couldn’t guarantee he _wouldn’t_ be able to do something to Wufei despite the lack of proof and the distance and the pure political nightmare it would be.  Jake, by his own confession, knew how to kill politicians in broad daylight and get away with it, let alone an accused criminal with a bounty on his head. 

            _And Treize…_  That still made her head spin.  She didn’t even want to think of what Jake might think of that.  The general was easily his oldest companion, second only to his dead family.  The Khushrenadas had taken him in as a child…  Treize had once trusted him to look after his lover and hidden _daughter_ on a regular basis.  If he had been left out of the loop on this, he would feel betrayed, and she didn’t know whose loyalty he would choose if she wanted to ally with Khushrenada.  And if he already knew…  _If Jake **does** know about Treize…_  

            _I need to talk to Dorothy just to try to sort this all out, if nothing else._   She didn’t dare trying to write it down to organize her thoughts the way she normally might; either Jake would stumble across it on accident or notice she was trying to hide something and seek it out.  She needed to decide on her options before that could happen. 

            _“Iie.”_  

            His tone was more… _final_ than it usually was when he spoke with his friend. 

            _“Iie,”_ he repeated in the same monotone, launching into another string of sentences in the same voice, stopping… then seeming to cut off whatever Mitchell was saying with another retort, his voice growing colder. 

            _They’re arguing._

            It took her a moment to discern why that notion seemed so ominous.  She had heard the two men disagree before, sometimes vastly… but never had they sounded _upset_ with each other, the way Jake did now.  It also wasn’t like him to give David a hard time when he was feeling so down… 

            Quickly pulling her pajamas out of the drawer, she headed back up the stairs and went to stand by Dorothy.  “Can I talk to sometime tomorrow, just you and I?  Maybe we could spend some time in the sauna.”  There was a distinct lack of clothing involved in that idea that barred Jake any entry. 

            Dorothy eyed her shrewdly, nodding.  “That sounds wonderful.  It should be fine so long as it’s before you go have dinner with that redheaded bitch, anyhow.” 

            Relena rolled her eyes, but really, after the past few days, she ought to have expected that.  “Yes, most people don’t have dinner during the morning hours.”  At this point, she was just ignoring the insults directed at Olivia, and seeing if the Romefeller heiress would lay off if she didn’t get a response.  Knowing the other woman as she did, Relena doubted the tactic would work, but had decided it was a good preliminary action in any case. 

            “I won’t wake before noon; I’m going to be out all night.” 

            “Thea, I don’t need to leave until after five.  I’ll spend some time with you before that, I promise.”  She was fairly sure that it really just boiled down to base jealousy, and it was a good idea to try to smooth the blonde’s ruffled feathers even if she didn’t need her confidence.  “Promise me you will, please?”  A touch of humility often worked wonders. 

            She only shrugged, but she looked happier than two seconds ago.  “I promise.” 

            “Thank-you.”  After another moment’s deliberation, she moved into Dorothy’s rooms and shut the door to change.  She wanted to just get her work done with already, so maybe her head could stop spinning long enough that she could try to tease apart the latest puzzle set in front of her.  _Maybe I ought to give in and let Mai try mixing me a drink._   It was starting to sound like a good idea if she still wanted her mindless evening. 

-

***

-

**June 28 th 198 – Saturday – Marlin, Texas – The United States**

            “Ready?” 

            “Well, they haven’t blown us all to kingdom come yet, we might as well finish,” Hilde muttered tightly.  Sweat was dripping down her face. 

            “Stop being a bitch,” Xutao snapped.  He didn’t look any better… or feel it, by his language. 

            “Stop being an utter dick, first.  I maintain my bitch skills with pride, motherfucker.” 

            “Let’s just open it,” Adam cut in tiredly.  The two rebels complimented each other’s skill sets well, but over the past week he had seriously begun to wonder at the wisdom of pairing them together under _any_ circumstance.  They managed to get any job he set them done smoothly, but he was at the point of waiting for the bickering to escalate into outright violence.  If it weren’t for the fact that nothing had actually happened so far, he would already be questioning Sally Po’s sanity; apparently they were regular _partners_. 

            He wasn’t sure if he was amused or not over how he was positive that Chang wasn’t lying at all when he told him those stories about crap Hilde had done to piss him off.  To hear him talk, it must be her favorite hobby – and to hear her talk, it was decently high on her list of priorities.  He was beginning to think they had been paired together just for the sake of comic relief, but he was still debating if that was in line with Sally’s brand of humor. 

            Having just spent hours trying to sear, blast, and hammer their way into the bunker entrance, however, he couldn’t blame them for short tempers.  He would personally like to lay down and sleep for a few hours, but he didn’t like the notion of how vulnerable they would be if he did.  This was dangerous enough already; they might as well finish what they had started. 

            “On three.” 

            It actually took far more attempts than a single count to three, so he supposed it was closer to a count of twenty, and at one point he got frustrated and took the blowtorch to it again, but after another thirty minutes of leveraging, cursing, and grinding more grime into their bodies, they forced the hinge open enough that they were finally able to swing it open.  What they saw inside, though… 

            “Oh my _fucking_ God, you’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me…”  

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base**

            “True, but if it had been set up like that, then my route would have been this way,” Odin explained patiently, pointing to a different entrance on the schematic.  “You’ll need to do more than that.” 

            The tech grimaced and nodded, muttering under his breath.  “Shit.  Alright, thanks…  give me a bit and I’ll see what I can work up…  I’ll call the General when we have something new for you to try to break.  You’re supposed to stay for another few days, right?” 

            “Three,” the ex-pilot agreed, standing up fully and flexing the individual muscles in his right leg as he settled the whole of his weight back on it, favoring his left to test its strength.  It was still fine, though it was sore after his last hour’s work.  The security measures on this base were stronger than Noin had credited them, which she would be glad to hear; he’d been able to make his way in, but it had taken more effort than they expected.  Still, there were gaps they could reasonably fill, if they were pointed out. 

            He left the room without saying anything more to the tech who was already happily ignoring him, staring at his diagrams while biting one lip.  Hopefully that was a ‘thinking’ pose for him, and not the lost and frustrated, frantic one that emergency room occupants tended to get.  The two could be… more difficult to tell apart than the other expressions he had begun to master. 

            In any case, it wasn’t really Odin’s problem.  Noin would be in one of three places; she would want to hear what he had encountered through him.  It was difficult to say exactly how long this base would continue to stay hidden with the Regime recovering the northern Africa land routes, and for all that its location was a political hotbed, that didn’t mean that Zechs might not make an attempt on an obvious enemy stronghold.  Additionally, despite the physical isolation it had in common with the Carpathian base, this Blue Nile stronghold was not hidden, only assumed empty; and it had nearby populations. 

            As Noin had noted, it was either perfect or a nightmare waiting to happen, and she was determined to keep it from becoming the latter.  The situation was… reminiscent of Sanc. 

            “Wicked…” 

            “Aren’t you glad she’s on our side?” 

            Odin paused in the doorway of the room they had the simulators in, considering the four young men raptly watching the performance display readout.  The cockpit shell on the machine itself was closed with someone inside. 

            “Did you think she led our battles because she couldn’t perform?”  asked a man in the more casual upper echelon Maguanac dress from where he leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the corner.  His tone was dryly amused. 

            _That answers my question._   Entering the room quietly, he veered wide of the group and went to stand by… _Abdul._   The taller man nodded at him slightly but didn’t otherwise alter his casual stance, so he nodded back and crossed his arms, settling himself to wait.  Noin had said she hadn’t even met a most of the recruits here, since they were mostly brought in by the Maguanac Corps, and had mentioned the she might have to show off a bit.  The air routes had remained open since _Libra_ even if the amount of traffic had drastically reduced, but with the rise of the Cambyses, the land and in some areas even the water routes through the Sahara had officially closed down, which reduced the ways to sneak through significantly. 

            “I hope that limp is Raquel’s fault,” Abdul murmured conversationally after a moment.  “It would be proof of at least some promise.” 

            That… was annoying.  He had hoped that that might go unnoticed; it made him wonder if Abdul’s eyes were sharp, or others had simply chosen not to remark upon it, instead of not noticing.  “It’s not as bad as you worried.” 

            “That _is_ good to hear.”  He gestured towards the rest of the room.  “It’s been quiet, lately, so it has been harder to say how they progress.  We’re getting the occasional stragglers from the north, but nothing close to home for some time.  When you’ve laid down such a large amount of preparation, but it remains untried…”  He shrugged. 

            Odin nodded.  Considering the crowd, he asked, “They can pilot?” 

            “I cannot claim to be an instructor so fine as Lucrezia, but I’ve honed the skills of more than a few pilots in my time,” he returned in a pleased tone.  “They aren’t bad; enough to be worth letting them try themselves on a battlefield by now.  The blonde there, Celise, I’ve considered sending to Lu, but I need her here to challenge the others.  Her father, Errane, coaches her and two others nearly every moment he can spare, and he was one of the best that came from the L4 cluster with us six years ago.  I let him choose his students, while I take them all; the heart he puts into it shows, and the family blood runs true, it seems.”  He adjusted his glasses slightly, looking down.  “I have another three I started to work with not long before _Libra_ who could possibly match Master Rashid now, and twelve more between the two groups.” 

            Odin refocused on the group and singled out Celise; with her close-cropped hair, she hadn’t stood out from the men.  She probably would as soon as she spoke, but he had yet to hear a female voice. 

            “If you don’t mind my asking, Lucrezia mentioned you have an apprentice?  Not her words, but the little she said…” 

            He had never really considered Marlé in those terms, but it was accurate enough.  “Yes.”  He didn’t offer anything more than that, and after a moment, Abdul grinned and nodded respectfully before focusing back on his students. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands - New Renew  
**

            “It’s so _cute_!” Melissa exclaimed as she shut the door behind her and went to flop on the futon next to her husband. 

            Duo grinned back at her, wrapping one arm around her.  “He’s old enough for a girlfriend, right?” 

            The Dutch woman snickered.  “He’s innocent for your average fifteen-year-old, but I should hope.” 

            “I don’t know if I would say that,” Duo mused.  He didn’t entirely agree with the ‘average’ age for some things that seemed to be a given in the Netherlands.  “And anyway, from what I’ve heard over the past few days they’re far more interested in picking each other’s brains than making out.”  Which was probably a blessing.  He had no idea where the little blonde girl had come from, beyond the fact that she was foreign, technically inclined, and spoke English as a first language.  Amos was so excited about someone to practice English with that he seemed to have entirely forgotten that Duo _hadn’t_ grown up speaking Dutch. 

            Melissa and Karina had both agreed that whether or not Amos had consciously realized it, his excitement with the girl had far more to do with the cute female end of things than the English. 

            His wife shrugged a little.  “She’s a rich little traveler from what I can tell, in any case; she’s leaving town tomorrow.  It might get a little weird if they were more into it.”  Duo closed his eyes.  He hadn’t even _thought_ of that…  And Melissa giggled again.  “Oh calm down, he’s getting help with his homework, and he gets to chatter about fixing stuff while she listens avidly.  It’s win-win, and at any rate it should help his self-confidence without any long-term worries.” 

            “Mm.”  He was going to have to remember to offer to help the kid with his homework once the girl was back out of town in any case.  He’d overheard Amos say he was worried he might _fail_ the damn language class; he really hoped the boy was exaggerating to try to get the girl’s attention, but he knew Amos well enough to realize he really might not have thought to try that trick. 

            “She’s an odd one, though…  Daron was on and on about her being as comfortable with heights as a cat.  Is that a colonial thing?” 

            “…What?” 

            Melissa raised both brows.  “Her passport says she’s from the L2 cluster, and Daron says he came across her wandering along a wall like it was a sidewalk.  That’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t think twice about doing if you were distracted enough.” 

            Duo frowned.  “Most colonial gravities are lower than on Earth, so heights aren’t as frightening, but by the same token, she ought to feel more worried about the stronger tug of the planetside gravity.”  Most people, when they came down to Earth, were a little nervous of their footing at first.  “I suppose if she’s been planetside for a while, though…”  That didn’t actually add to the logic in either direction, to be honest; most people didn’t like walking on top of walls anywhere you went.  It took a certain type of personality and confidence, as well as practice, and it either would or wouldn’t happen in either place. 

            A thought occurred to him.  “Should I go be sociable?” 

            “No point, really,” ‘Liss reassured him. 

            No reason to bother them, then. 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base**

            “You might be surprised,” Noin returned to the cadets’ compliments.  “To be honest, that maneuver requires more guts and confidence than skill, and with the simulators, learning is risk-free.  You won’t be allowed on the field if you’re above a certain ratio for damages, but there’s too much you can perfect in the sims that you could never think to even try in a real suit; I’ve never agreed with the commanders who punish students for being reckless in VR.” 

            A few of the rookie pilots seemed to disbelieve her, while others bit one lip or shook their heads; only two seemed to take it to heart with a calculating look.  Odin noted that the girl Abdul had pointed out was one of those two. 

            Noin didn’t miss the looks either.  “Hey, everyone starts somewhere, alright?  Nobody’s a natural right off the bat; the modern piloting system isn’t intuitive.  It takes time, and plenty of hard work; I sure as hell didn’t get as far as I am by goofing off.”  She glanced back in Abdul’s direction and met eyes with Odin briefly, then to the clock.  “I was in there longer than I said I would be, wasn’t I?  Sorry for taking your time; get back to work.  Whoever’s next up on this machine, go.”  The male that had looked like he thought he could do more quite literally launched himself into the cockpit, to the protest of at least two others.  Their commander shook her head and headed over to her guest.  “Please tell me you haven’t been here long.” 

            “Only a few minutes.” 

            “That sounds promising, at any rate.” 

            “Your head of security said he’d call you when he found something else for me to break.”  He realized that the group of students seemed to be more watching them and gossiping than getting back to work, but Abdul could see that just as easily and was obviously ignoring it. 

            She grinned.  “That sounds like him.  Did he-” 

            “Man, if only she _hadn’t_ let Peacecraft have the title…” 

            Lucrezia trailed off when she heard the name, cutting herself off. 

            “There was a hell of a lot more to it than that, man…” 

            “Well yeah, but she’s so much better than him that, shit, would he have really ever gotten off the ground in the first place?  He got his reputation because he graduated top of the class, right?  Then Treize took him on a handful of missions and coined him with that ‘Lightning Count’ nickname, and he got taken on more and more shit after that while everyone forgot about her back at Lake Victoria.  Try switching them out: what if _he_ had been forgotten?” 

            Abdul shifted slightly but didn’t otherwise move, choosing instead to watch Noin.  Odin decided that if the Maguanac was choosing noninterference, that was probably the best option for himself as well, though he kept his eyes on the blonde young man who was… on a roll.  His list of ‘what if’ situations was going on as he reran scenario after scenario throughout the war… and the others were listening.  The door on the virtual reality pod hadn’t shut yet despite the boot up having had enough time by now... and only Celise and another of the seven had seemed to realize that they had caught their general’s attention. 

            He wondered if their hearing was compromised, or if they were just stupid. 

            “Well, it doesn’t really make sense anyway.  Maybe she just had an off day, okay?  Everyone goes on like she threw the exams on purpose, but look at the guy, hey?  Hell, maybe he _sabotaged_ her.  I mean, this is Marquise, he’s not exactly a paragon of integrity.” 

            Lucrezia closed her eyes and her mouth pressed into a firm line as her hands balled into fists. 

            Celise took a firm backwards step away from the group, then another.  Abdul remained entirely impassive. 

            “Nobody has _that_ bad of a day; it wouldn’t have happened out the way it did if their scores were actually neck and neck, especially seeing as they _were_ up until then.  There were over thirty people in their class, _everyone_ knew, and records say she even got called on it – she just kept her mouth shut and no one could prove it if she denied it.” 

            “Why would anyone do that, though?” 

            “Because some people have the common sense to prioritize,” Noin snapped coldly, finally turning around to glare at them. 

            They all froze, realizing they were caught out…  rather late, in Odin’s opinion.  If you only realized after the hammer dropped, then you probably needed the beating. 

            “Prioritize?”  The man’s confusion was…  very definite. 

            “Consider what you want in life,” she ordered in a dangerous tone.  “Fame or security?  Adventure or safety?  Politics or honesty?  Comfort or notoriety?  Glory, or moral sanction?  Regret, or absolution?”  She tilted her head slightly, walking towards them.  “Instead of blindly following goals set before you, realize what each road will offer you.  Will you be happy?  Will you remember how to laugh and cry?  Will you want to remember anything you’ve done at all, let alone tell your grandchildren the story?  Will you live to have children?”  She sneered.  “Will anyone want to _have_ your children?  Will you still even believe in the comfort of another human being, or will you only wish death on yourself? 

            “Make sure you realize your responsibilities before they slap you in the face; know your repercussions, good and bad, before they cripple you.  Don’t live so completely on a dream that you couldn’t move on if it died in front of you.  Don’t live so far in the future that you look at your past and present and ask yourself _why_ , because if you need to take the time to think, the time to walk away has already come and passed.” 

            She shook her head.  “Get out, and think fucking hard about what you _want_ before you come back here.”  Turning her gaze slowly over all of them, lingering on Celise as well, she added, “If your own damn happiness isn’t somehow at the top of that list, don’t come back; I won’t think any less of you if you don’t. 

            “And consider one last thing while you’re at it: when has being the ‘best’ at anything ever made someone _happy_?  Truthfully, just by itself, honest to goodness joyful at being alive?  Because frankly, I’ve seen a lot of people try, and I’ve yet to find a single victor willing to let satisfaction get in the way of ambition. 

            “Now get out of my sight.” 

            They scattered.  Noin stood watching after them for a long moment, then sighed.  “I’m taking a walk.”  She didn’t look back.  Abdul shrugged and moved away from the wall to shut down the computers. 

            Odin stayed where he was, considering the tight ball of emotions crowding his chest.  The idea of moving didn’t appeal, just yet…  The motion might help it slip away, if he didn’t pick it apart first. 

-

***

-

**Vulkanus – Space, Barge ruins**

            Treize considered the woman before him as he entered the observation deck.  Slightly younger than himself, he would admit some similarity to himself in that she used her age not as a shield, but to intimidate.  No one enjoyed facing the newest generations; after all, if a person could accomplish so much in the first twenty-four years of their lives, when most of that was arguably devoted to childhood, what could they do in the following decades?  In his opinion, the old men of their time had only made it as far as they had due to the state of constant fighting that Romefeller had been so keen on perpetuating.          When there were battles to fight, the majority of young men rushed to the front lines, and the favorites were safely kept at home and groomed to follow in tradition’s footsteps.  There was, after all, no reason to break a system that worked in your favor. 

            It was probably based on these lines of logic that he had been allowed so much leeway through his own teen years – no one had seen OZ as anything more than the latest fad for the noble’s sons who wanted battlefield glory.  What the constantly perpetuated wars didn’t eradicate were only fools trying to preen their feathers. 

            They hadn’t planned for a man with his vision or drive to change the cycle.  Stagnation, however profitable, came with a price. 

            “Most would consider this sight depressing,” he announced once he had waited long enough that she was sure to have noticed him.  “Yet I always seem to find you here.” 

            “I find it nostalgic,” she admitted smoothly, not looking back in his direction.  “What happened here was tragic, but the familiarity of home has a way of winning you over.  I waited and waited for the beauty of Earth to grow on me, as everyone said it would, but in truth, I can’t say I acquired a taste for horizons.”  She turned towards him and smiled, green eyes shining, before looking back out the window and trailing one hand along the transparent plastic.  Her smooth gold ring clicked softly upon contact.  “It gives me hope to see something so sad made into something useful.  I come here to watch and see if I can spot your men when they train.  Glimmers of movement in the darkness…  I find them far more elegant than the fireflies around my estate.  There’s a team out there now, I believe.” 

            Treize smiled back, moving to stand beside her.  “I never considered it, but I can see the similarities,” he decided after a moment.  “However, as an avid lover of both nature’s beauty and humanity’s creations, I find myself torn at trying to rank them.” 

            “The plight of the Earthborn,” Belle said in her neutral way of agreement that Treize was becoming accustomed to.  “In the end, scenery is merely scenery; it is the people within that makes me treasure this.  I find the nature of space more… _honest_ than that of the planet.” 

            “It is what it is,” Treize agreed.  “It offers no mask for its cruelty.” 

            “Yes.  That’s it exactly.” 

            Having only been back in space for a handful of days himself, Treize was still unsure of where he stood with this new ally of his.  Belle Blaine was carefully _bland_ , for lack of a better word, but not in a fashion that lacked for personal flair.  Instead, it was more that she was quiet and withdrawn… and while amenable to conversation, she was not the type to seek it.  She dressed simply and left her hair to hang loose to her elbows, and… didn’t argue with anyone over anything.  She didn’t start conversation, for all that she didn’t seem to mind it either. 

            Belle was an enigma, if only a mild one.  Most people chose ambassadors with far more… force.  Interestingly, however, the shift of tactics kept him off balance, and that was likely just as intended.  Mrs. Blaine was difficult to read, past basic facial expressions. 

            “Less than a week now,” she murmured.  “Are they ready?” 

            “Doubtlessly.” 

            “How unfortunate.”  She met his eyes sidelong, her gaze flat.  “I would rather it was only us prepared, but I doubt that Peacecraft’s men feel any differently than your own, at this point.  It’s a great loss to have waited so long, or with the disrupted timing, at least.” 

            Inwardly he agreed, but he could not have helped what happened.  It would have been better to coordinate with Po and her people, but she had never given him an opportunity.  Instead, they would simply have to stay outside of the other’s sphere of influence to avoid future problems.  “I’m afraid that April was simply too soon to move and still have worthy assurances.” 

            “I wholeheartedly agree,” she returned.  “I only find myself wishing that the footing were less… equal… than it appears to be.  We can afford a war of attrition better than our enemy, but expenses add up all the same.  The less time we spend in that stage, the better.”  She met his eyes again, long sandy brown bangs trailing across one cheek.  “Has the evening post allowance begun yet?” 

            “We have twenty minutes more,” Treize reassured her.  Mail or any communication to the remote base was sent in mass packets coupled with a time allowance for real-time outside communication.  “Are you expecting a message?”

            “Always,” she promptly dismissed.  “But hardly an urgent one.  No, I was considering calling my son… his grandmother likely has him finishing his dinner right now.  Perhaps I could sing to him as he lies down.  The timing comes out about right for it maybe three times a week, and I try to catch them all.  Heather is stepping in for him as a mother until we’re past all this, and I trust my husband’s mother enough for his safety and a helping hand, but every baby knows his mother’s face and voice.  They say he sleeps better after I sing to him.” 

            “He will be three soon, correct?” 

            “In October.”  Smiling again, staring out at the forever night, she mused, “I wonder if he will prefer blue skies too, when he’s older.  He was born under them, after all.”  She pursed her lips for a moment, seeming to hesitate.  “I’m sorry we’ve had no progress finding your own child, Treize.  The only comfort I can offer is that if you are correct in your assumption that someone is protecting her, they are doing the job well.  Your photographs of Leia Barton will bear fruit eventually in either scenario; we know enough of her adult facial structure and that of her family’s that aging her image appropriately wasn’t a far reach.  It’s a shame that you only know she went into medicine, not the field or position.” 

            “She wanted to be a doctor,” Treize murmured, though he knew the brunette already knew the information by heart.  “But she would go through phases where she wasn’t sure she would go through with it.  The last time I heard from her, Dekim was taking Mariemaia away from her just so she could go to medical school full time, but that was…”  He shook his head, marveling over the lost years.  “That was six years ago, in 192.  If she kept at it without break, she would be done with school, of course, but the length of a residency varies widely…  and then, if she went about her coursework more slowly, the timing becomes blurry.  Then there are the factors of if she decided to do something else after all.” 

            “Hence why we are looking at newly established physicians first, but also at residents and students, and the entirety of medical populace made up of women in their mid to late twenties.”  She shrugged slightly.  “In the end, it’s the only viable approach to take.  We are starting by screening hospitals and practices and of course the governmentally employed for similarities.  Age and gender easily more than halve the original sample size, but it will still take time.”  She tilted her head towards one shoulder, looking towards him out of the corner of her eye.  “Especially as we do not want to move quickly enough to alert anyone, including her; she has no reason to think we are not those who would do her harm.  The colonies are nearly as numerous as the stars in the sky, and frankly, we have more urgent priorities for the time being.  If she is alive, it can be assumed that she has made herself safe.” 

            “That is all true,” Treize agreed coolly.  He had run his own mind through circle after circle and long since came to the same conclusion. 

            “I admire that you refuse to divert the resources away from her search, all the same,” Belle added, offering him a sweet smile.  “Speaking as a woman, I can tell you that she will appreciate it.” 

            “Thank-you.” 

            She nodded slightly, moving away from him.  “It was a pleasure to speak with you, Treize.  I imagine I will see you tomorrow.  Good night; I pray you sleep well.” 

            Treize smiled and offered the noblewoman his own smile and a slight bow. Her tendency to immediately use his first name was slightly disconcerting, as few enough did it, but it well within her rights.  “You as well, Mrs. Blaine.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, the word “iie” is Japanese for “no”. It occurred to me that I just know that, and Relena, having lived in Japan for the majority of her life would know that, so I couldn’t think of a good way to add in her thinking that without it sounding stupid, but I do realize that not everyone watches subbed anime as religiously as I do. 
> 
> Thoughts? I rather enjoyed the Noin’s speech, personally, and thought it was about time that Relena started to wonder about a few of her bodyguard’s details; it seems… very like her that she doesn’t actually distrust him, despite realizing that her perception might be entirely compromised. Kailì was fun, Quatre’s childhood more telling than I expected it to be, and Marlé… Marlé is trying to make everything just blow up in my face for shits and giggles, I swear.


	7. Revival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs makes poor decisions - Odin gleefully helps. Relena is more than happy to pick up the slack, however, and the Maguanacs throw a party. Meanwhile, the trio in America deal with something far less glamorous than the Apocalypse, and Quatre gets a pleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another of my favorite chapters! Both because of Odin and Relena! Enjoy!  
> \--
> 
> If anyone wants to see why Sally’s age isn’t canon, please see the rant I’ll post below… If you don’t care, then hey, Sally’s older than the majority of the main characters, whatever.  
> \--  
> Edit: Mostly further clarification on location as well as cleaning up Noin's thought processing in her scene, and overall grammar and formatting issues are cleared up.

**_-_ **

**_ Revival _ **

_\--_

_“No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.” – Rachel Carson_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**July 1 st 198 – Tuesday – Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base**

            Odin twitched sharply when the base klaxon started to wail and clenched his jaw as he sloshed hot coffee down the front of his shirt.  Growling, he set the cup down on the counter and started to jog to the control room.  _There weren’t supposed to be any drills or tests today._  

            The base personnel he passed in the hall seemed to be responding to the sound fairly well, quickly but calmly going to their assigned stations…  _Nothing out of the ordinary, or at least nothing they hadn’t been drilled into boredom over._   It was a sign of a well-trained group – the Alliance regulars had always had something of a tendency to mill and yell ridiculously. 

            When he reached his destination, however, there was no missing the distinct taste of panic in the air, or the mass of blips on the radar readout approaching their perimeter. 

            Abdul’s jaw was tight, and his arms were crossed as he stared at the readouts.  Noin stood near him, and was talking briskly to two different men, asking logistics, response times…  Odin focused on the tech he had mostly been working with over the past few days who appeared to be furiously focused, and went to stand over his shoulder.  After a moment, he frowned.  “Move.” 

            “Busy, Yuy…” 

            He backhanded him and while the man gasped and reached for the side of his head reflexively, Odin shoved his chair to once side and took over the computer console, seeing if an old trick worked.  “I know this encryption.  You’re going about hacking their coms the long way.” 

            “The _fuck_ I am!  You can’t just tell from one damn second of…” 

            “We’ve got their radio link,” Odin called out. 

            “Put it through line three,” Noin ordered.  “Koln, monitor it, switch it to the big speakers as soon as they start tossing orders.” 

            “Ma’am.”  The tech – Koln, apparently – swore as he shoved his chair back into place and did as told, snatching up a pair of headphones.  “I’m not sure how the hell you do that, but don’t _hit_ me next time.” 

            “Practice.  Next time, move.”  He’d only swung hard enough to startle. 

            Koln growled and began to mutter darkly in a language that the pilot couldn’t hear enough of to decipher.  Odin moved quickly to Abdul’s side, only to have the Arabic man raise his eyebrows at him.  “That was fast even for you.” 

            “The first thing I do with any com system I run is work out how to crack it.  Treize did a good job with it, but…”  He shrugged. 

            “And you never let Zechs know you could eavesdrop whenever it suited you,” Noin finished, her tone… odd. 

            Odin focused on her, and noticed the white-knuckled grip she had on the back of the chair in front of her, the unevenness of her breathing… the flatness in eyes that, he had realized over the past few weeks, were normally very expressive. 

            Epyon was out there.  Zechs.  This wasn’t the seething rage he had seen the other day when she tore into her recruits…  _This is more… upset._  

            Zechs.  Maybe not everything had changed. 

            And…  _Zechs_.  That sounded… incredibly… _good_.  His blood started to pound, adrenaline slamming into his veins at the very idea. 

            “Give me Heavyarms’ access codes.” 

            Noin spun around to face him, eyes narrowed.  “No.”  She focused on Abdul.  “You’re on lead; I need to go fly.” 

            “No,” Abdul argued.  “My kids are on the field in this one; they know my patterns, not yours.  They’re not ready for this.” 

            She grit her teeth.  “I can do this.” 

            Odin grinned back at her, _elation_ outright shocking up his spine.  “You could.”  He didn’t doubt that she would, for all that she found the idea distasteful.  “But I would _love_ to do it instead.” 

            She blinked, surprised…  and finally _looked_ at him, starting to smirk.  “You really would, wouldn’t you?” 

            A phrase of Marlé’s came to mind.  “Any day of the week.” 

-

***

-

**Brussels, Belgium**

            _“What the **hell** are you people letting him smoke?!”  _

            Somehow, the fact that she was in her nightgown and her hair all a mess from sleeping didn’t make Princess Relena any less intimidating. 

            “Your Highness, I assure you that-” 

            _“I just woke up to a call from Ambassador Kim, saying that he’s sorry, but he’s gathering his people and heading home because they’re about to **go to war with us**!”_   She slapped one hand down on the desk in front of her set of screens.  _“Because apparently, Milliardo just broke his bloody peace treaty by attacking an outpost on **their territory**!  Territory they have full rights to by the truce **he** crafted in 196!”_  

            General Lee felt his cheeks go cold, even as he tried to sooth the blonde woman.  It was a _mistake_!  “There are _rebels_ in that base, we confirmed-” 

            _“ **Rebels** be damned!  The Chinese are a **greater** threat on all counts.  Half the colonies are under **their** alignment!  Get your men **off** the battlefield, General, or so help me, I will make a statement that your inability to pick up the phone and **negotiate with your allies** before sending out troops – sending out a **gundam** of all things – just cost us Europe’s winter crop!”  _

            …He wouldn’t last an _hour_ out of doors if the princess followed through on her threat. 

            _“ **Get him off the field** ,”_ she persisted, _“and I can mend this.  At least, I can mend it well enough that the **people** won’t feel it, and we don’t all have angry **mobs** coming after us.”_   She hung up, and the screen went blank. 

            Lee took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.  He had been _assured_ that the wording of the treaty document…  _Well, assurances be damned, apparently._   They _couldn’t_ afford Chinese hostility right now, and if the princess could fix that, then he was following her lead.  “Someone get me a secure line to Geraldi.”  He doubted the Lightning Count would listen to reason while in the midst of battle – his record certainly didn’t suggest it – but his first lieutenant would. 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base**

            _“Sir, we need to-”_

            Zechs tuned out Geraldi’s voice as he fought his traitorous lungs and gravity both, pushing the thrusters to their limits in order to not move into the position Heavyarms had slammed him towards, struggling to get an upper hand. 

            None of the analyses he had run on the battles this new variation of Heavyarms had participated in matched today’s… ferocity.  It was faster than he had thought as well.  _Apparently the pilot has only been running it as fast as the situation called for, each time he flew._  

            Also apparently, the hours, _weeks_ , he had poured into the sims trying to get ready for this didn’t hold a candle to a real battle.  He had known that, but… 

            The red beam saber dug deep into Epyon’s tail before the computer could input the need to deflect properly, or he could manually do it himself. 

            Something was terribly _wrong_.  The timings within his machine were off, and not in any consecutive way that he could decipher.  The computer system was… _wrong_.  It didn’t make sense, he had run literally every diagnostic again and again, but it- 

            A lance of pain shocked through his chest and right arm. 

            **_I_** _am wrong._  

            The fear suddenly struck him that the machine might not be the problem.  Before he could consider it in any depth, however, the world spun as Heavyarms sent Epyon _flying_ and he heard more than felt his head crack _through_ the cushions of his chair into the unyielding metal behind; his vision momentarily blacked out.  He reflexively tried to heave up the nothing he had purposely maintained in his stomach, but couldn’t coordinate enough to even gasp as the nerves of his back burned like the flames had been reignited. 

            ‘Shit’ didn’t even begin to cover it.  Nothing more creative came to mind, though. 

            _“ **Sir**!”  _

-

***

-

            Heavyarms willingly retreated when the five Tauruses launched themselves in front of Epyon while two Aries hastily moved to _pick up_ the other gundam. 

            They had been screeching about a retreat and a treaty for a while now, and Lucrezia had snorted through the com link and noted that it was a little _late_ for that, but that they were to allow the troops to withdraw once they reached the perimeter line.  Zechs, however… 

            She felt her jaw clench.  The man, as usual, just didn’t know when to drop it. 

            _Heero seems to be enjoying himself, at any rate._   She couldn’t help but smile a bit at the memory of that predatory grin… and she was going to have to chase him about exactly _how_ he was opening up the gundam’s capabilities, because he’d already pulled off at least two maneuvers that she hadn’t considered possible with the extra weight of the armor.  Hilde ran her little programs that sped things up, but they tended to be highly detrimental – an iteration of robbing Peter to pay Paul.  If there _was_ something decent for that effect in the coding arena, Heero _would_ be the one to ask. 

            _Knowing him, it’s just as likely to be something I overlooked entirely that he doesn’t know how to do without._   She shook her head a little, amused. _He might be confused about what I’m even talking about, when I ask._  

            Confusion was his most common first reaction to a great deal of things.  Serious contemplation and casual revelation usually followed, tailed by a startlingly easygoing brand of acceptance.  The remote, occasionally alarming boy had grown into one of the most straightforward, laid back men she had ever met.  Not that she had personally ever seen him upset before – despite at least a few instances that would have warranted it.  Relena had mentioned him glowering and storming off or leveling threats before he’d come back to Sanc, but…  The blonde she had met three months ago was effortlessly serene. 

            _Then again, is that really new?_   He’d been practically blasé about any and everything the first time they’d met – it had been Trowa who balked at the trip to Antarctica.  Heero had just shrugged and gone along with it, and made his point by proceeding to absolutely _own_ every action he made in response, making the rest of them feel downright small.  In Sanc he’d been skeptical, but perfectly willing to play along once again. 

            When he’d come to _Peacemillion_ , she could tell that something had changed, but hadn’t really put much thought to it beyond how he seemed older.  She had…  Well, her thoughts had been focused elsewhere, hadn’t they?  She hadn’t really cared what Heero did so long as he held to their pact and didn’t start fights, and all he’d done at every turn was win them more support, first from Wufei, then drawing in the other gundam pilots as well. 

            _Had he already reached this point of resolution, by then?_   She thought he was… _looser_ now, even while still almost regally confident.  _Less hemmed in by pride, maybe._   Though she was pretty sure he’d insisted on dueling in Heavyarms instead of Wing as a big ‘fuck you’, not the flouting of charity Zechs took it as.  A dare to prove that he could outmaneuver the Lightning Count even _with_ the odds against him – Zechs at his prime against himself in a suit he’d never flown before. 

            Her lips twitched.  _And he certainly was excited enough to do it again today, even though he was anonymous.  But he never really meant for us to know him, did he?  The first time he let us see his face, he was committing suicide – suicide in the name of preventing colonial genocide._  

            There was a repeating pattern there, and she didn’t care for it.  It said some pretty damning things about their culture as a whole, that that tactic kept coming up. 

            In any case, the danger was officially over, so she turned and headed for the hangar to see everyone back in – though she kept her com link on, listening in on the Epyon’s channel until they were out of range.  The Regime soldiers didn’t allow their devoted dictator to argue with them until they reached the territorial boundaries, which was likely for the best.  _It’s not as though he’s been listening to the ongoing frantic arguments for the past ten minutes on why they needed to leave **immediately**._   Something along the lines of ‘the Chinese will come and kill us all’ only more politically correct and less fear mongering.  This Geraldi seemed to be one of the more verbose types when under pressure… something Lucrezia had always found rather annoying, though sometimes highly amusing.  The things that spilled out of David Mitchell’s mouth once he got going were usually worth recording to embarrass him with later. 

            …Dave was fighting off the madmen to the north, now.  It wasn’t a job she envied in the slightest, but she was relieved he was in charge – her old friend knew how to get things done.  _He’ll make the best of it… if anyone can salvage a bad situation and turn it into a boon, it’s Dave._   According to their little peephole into the Regime intelligence network, it was going well.  Reports kept coming back about how he was finding far more sane victims in Cambyses than they had anticipated. 

            _I wonder how many of them he’s recruiting for Treize, then?_   Once they’d learned her old instructor was still alive, there had never been a shadow of doubt in her mind that Mitchell was a faithful agent – loyalty was the very core of David’s being, the same way contentment was hers.  Not everyone could be defined so simply, of course, but they all had their strongest aspect.  Jake’s concept of beloved, Treize and his notion of true nobility, Zechs and… 

            _But was any of that ever true?_   She knew, now, that she had missed something critical – a large part of what made Milliardo who he was.  The fallen prince she had fallen in love with had never been real.  So, no…  After _Libra_ , she wouldn’t presume to know his focal personality traits.  Not anymore.  

            Cassie had always persisted that something about the prince troubled her, hadn’t she?  Jake had never grown to like him, though he’d at least agreed to civility… and Jake’s version of civil was frighteningly close to Zechs’ definition of loving, so they had gotten on amazingly well after she convinced him to at least play nice. 

            She fought down a grin.  The pure hilarity of _that_ particular situation just kept increasing every time they pulled a report related to Relena out of the Regime.  Zechs had charged Jake with Relena.  He had allowed him to simply _refuse_ any inquiries towards his men when suspicion rose.  Not to mention the sudden _skill_ Relena had in flouting and fudging every possible line in existence? 

            Milliardo appeared to implicitly _trust_ the man now, and Jake was far from above using that mistake to his greatest advantage.  She hadn’t lied when she told Sally that she had no idea what side Jake might be working for, but that was because above all else, Jake worked for _himself -_ and while that usually included an allegiance, he wouldn’t compromise if he didn’t appreciate his options.  The puppet master had a strong talent for custom crafting his own sphere of influence… and by everything she could learn, he revolved around the princess these days. 

            As Relena was becoming more of a power in her own right, they probably had their answer about his alignment right there…  which in turn meant that the ball was in Relena’s court, and the question became tricky again. 

            Unfortunately, personally being on the list of the man’s beloved didn’t count for much when he was so thorough with his security that finding him _alone_ to approach and talk to was physically impossible.  _And with the webs of deceit the chameleon weaves through everyone around him, there’s no way I can trust anyone he's keeping nearby, which makes privacy a must._  She had only had a scarce minute of access in Amsterdam to see him last December, and even that had been risky as hell.  Relena’s company would be safe too, of course, but on the off chance that he took her on outings without the other guards he selected, Lucrezia knew she would have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding them on such an excursion. 

            Jake was useless when it came to anything mechanical, but in trade for that, he was a master in virtually all other arts of violence and espionage.  There was literally no one she would feel safer with at her back.  Milliardo’s mistake was that he never got close enough to realize just how _exclusive_ the man’s trust was.  She could count the people who had ever held full rights to rely on the man on her hands, and half of them were dead.  _Well, there might be a total of eight, now.  Relena has a way of winning people over._  

            _“Heavyarms reporting,”_ muttered Heero’s voice through her earpiece.  _“Could someone get my grey backpack out from under my bunk?”_  

            Lucrezia looked around and gestured at someone with a radio questioningly, who shrugged agreeably and waved before jogging out of the room. “I’ve got someone on it,” she assured him.  “You’re going to have to teach me some what you did out there today, Yuy.  You sure you’ve only flown that baby once?” 

            She smiled and closed her eyes as the bay doors opened, enjoying the blast of hot wind on her face as her hair was blown back.  She had been ready to damn Sally to hell when the troops had shown up, but now, she could _kiss_ the woman.  Their ally had held true to their promises… and while it changed the playing field earlier than planned, it might not be a bad thing.  She was going to have to get Heero’s help on yet another project now that she had only been idly considering before, but it ought to peak his interest in any case.

            The pilot’s tone was a touch amused.  _“It doesn’t handle anything like it did in Antarctica; it’s been remodded too many times.  It’s not too different from Wing, though.”_  

            That made sense.  “Good to know.  You have fun out there?” 

            His laughter, more of a chuckle than anything, was refreshing.  He had laughed easily enough over the past few months of course, but it was still startling, in contrast to before.  Whether he had been so unflappable before or not, he… she didn’t remember him ever really being _happy_ , before. 

            In some ways it would have been easier to consider him someone else entirely, but it wasn’t a schism she cared to allow her mind to take solace in.  The idea was a crutch.  She preferred to face her reality fully, especially after… after everything. 

            _“I owe you a favor for this,”_ he announced after a moment.  Yuy was waiting outside the hangar while the other pilots quickly settled their suits into the appropriate resting bays – he didn’t know the usual formations, so he was waiting for them to clear the floor.  _“I…”_   He paused, seeming to seriously consider, before deciding, _“I forgot how much I missed this.”_  

            Abdul laughed delightedly as he activated his own com.  _“Oh, but Heero, my friend, it was worth it to see you knock him flat on his ass, believe me.”_  

            Lucrezia snickered.  Not at the concept – although it _had_ been vindictively amusing to watch – so much as the fact that the leading Maguanac cursed so rarely that it surprised her every time. 

            _“Do you drink?”_ the Arabic man went on to ask. 

            _“…Alcohol?”_

            She made sure her earpiece was on manual and muted before she gave into helpless giggles.  His puzzlement was all too evident. 

            Abdul laughed outright.  _“I’m buying you a drink tonight.”_  

            Silence met that announcement for a good five seconds.  Finally, _“Why?”_  

            Abdul took it in stride.  _“To celebrate, of course!”_  

            _“…You get what you want as part of a celebration, right?”_

            _“That too, naturally.”_

            _“Can I have a hot bath instead?”_

            Lucrezia closed her eyes while Abdul _howled_ , and pretty much everyone near her laughed or shared disbelieving looks. 

            _“I’ve only seen showers so far,”_ he protested mildly. 

            She let out a few more giggles, eyes still shut.  He _did_ always look in the bathrooms of anywhere he stayed almost immediately, but she had dismissed it as a perimeter check habit.  He also did seem to enjoy taking an inordinately long time in the bath or shower, but that wasn’t an uncommon trait in the colony-born who realized they were completely without water restrictions; especially those who had once lived such strict lifestyles as Heero.  _I hadn't thought it was so high a priority as **this**_ though.  _  
_

            Touching the button on her earpiece, she suggested, “How about a compromise?  You’ve been too busy to go down there, Heero, but there’s a hot tub off to the side in the gym.”  She smirked a bit.  “Hot water and partying don’t have to be exclusive, I’ve gathered.” 

            There was a definite hesitation, but after a moment he apparently shrugged it off.  _“Alright.”_  

            Banter broke out to her more local hearing as her soldiers finished powering down and exited their machines, happy to be home safe.  Abdul had been in his rights, earlier… counting on the protection that Sally had forged with her homeland, they hadn’t considered that Milliardo might be foolish enough to attack before they did something overt, and consequently, the most inexperienced and young recruits resided here.  Before all was said and done this would likely be their stronghold, but… they had not been ready for battle against veterans, and they knew it. 

            She let the soldiers’ chatter wash over her and found her own comfort in it, allowing relief to settle in her chest and make its home there.  Casualty-free victories were rare, especially with such green troops.  She would bask in what she could get; she’d braced for the worst, once the news came in. 

            Letting out a deep breath, she opened her eyes and found Abdul standing off to one side of her in his calmly excited way.  His stance was relaxed and his smile easy, but this mood, for him, was akin to other men virtually bouncing off the walls.  She hadn’t expected any less, really, considering her own humor, but seeing the reflection in her comrade added another layer of pleasant reverb. 

            When he frowned, however, alarm bells went off and she moved to follow his gaze.  Once he was this happy, it took- 

            _Oh, hell._

            Heero had finally parked and exited the suit, and was _limping_ towards them.  The front center of his shirt was too dark, the edges of the dark splotch were just starting to dry and crust over.  “Heero?” she demanded sharply.  _What in the **hell** did he find in the cockpit to cut himself on?_   “Get the doctor,” she snapped as she strode forward, and she saw Abdul dart away in her peripheral vision. 

            Heero stopped and narrowed his eyes at her.  “Calm down.” 

            _Damn it, this is my fault._   She was supposed to have been the one out there, not him.  “What happened?” 

            His glare was more suspicious than anything, she estimated, and there was still confusion there as well.  _For whatever reason, this time._   “Could you be more specific?”  He shifted higher on his good leg to look around her.  “Did anyone bring my bag yet?” 

            Horror stories of him dealing with his own injuries rose unaided.  She’d never call Duo a rumormonger, but he didn’t keep his mouth shut about things that impressed or creeped him out, and Heero was good at evoking both emotions.  “You’ll be seeing the doctor on base,” she informed him.  “Sally handpicked him, and I trust him with my life.” 

            He blinked at her, expression clearly showing he thought she was being absurd.  “It’s not necessary.” 

            “I insist.” 

            Exasperation crept onto his face.  “Fine.  Is my bag here yet?”  He started to limp forward again, and her alarm actually grew when she saw just how gingerly he was treating his right leg. 

            The boy who would reset his own femur and _walk it off_ was being that delicate with his body.  Her approach was also not getting far, however, so she purposefully chose her next words to have less concern.  “What happened to your shirt?” 

            He snorted.  “I poured coffee all over myself when the alarms went off.” 

            Some of the tension in her chest lessened.  _Not blood._   Taking a few steps closer and focusing on it, she could see, now, that it was too brown to be blood, even drying blood.  That still left the leg, though… 

            _He was limping Saturday afternoon too,_ she recalled suddenly, and was hit with the worry that he had done himself some fairly decent damage testing her base’s defenses.  _Damn and **damn**._  

            And he was eying her as if worried she might explode, now… which did _not_ help her temper. 

            Instead of continuing to mother hen when he was obviously off put by it, however, she crossed her arms and glowered.  She had learned, after a certain point, to let the physicians do the lecturing.  He met her gaze with exasperated annoyance, seemingly content to wait her out… which was fine, because she was only waiting for someone else to show up and take over. 

            Instead of the doctor, however, it was the man who had gone to fetch his knapsack who interrupted them.  Without breaking from her gaze, the pilot muttered a gruff thank-you and hooked one arm through the grab loop on top so he could hold it aloft and use both hands on the zipper at the same time, opened it, and dug for a moment before pulling out another bag, at which point he let the backpack slump to the floor.  Tugging the drawstring open, he pulled out something long and cylindrical and quickly unwound a cord around it, revealing it to be three separate pieces.  He tucked the cord into the bag then dropped it in the gaping mouth of the backpack at his feet before fitting two of the ends together and deftly spinning them into place, connecting them to the third in the same fashion.  It wasn’t until he pulled it to his right side and comfortably rested his weight on it that she realized what it was. 

            A cane. 

            Her mind went blank, and stayed that way even as he began to move towards her again with far more ease than he had any right… the kind of ease that was earned with long familiarity. 

            He carried that pack everywhere he went.  The cane was unusual enough that it was likely custom made, and he carried it with him in that bag without fail.  The easy way he’d gone through the wrappings and assembled it without breaking their staring contest screamed of the same long familiarity. 

            All the tension left her in a rush, and she sighed, feeling drained.  “What happened?” she asked quietly, relaxing her stance. 

            He seemed to relax minutely as well, though he just shrugged.  “I’ve been pushing myself.  I overextended.” 

            “Does it happen often?” she asked quietly.  He hadn’t answered fully, but she hadn’t honestly expected him to; she could ask later, or let the doctor ask.  She still wanted him looked over, even if it was just a confirmation of what he knew. 

            “Not anymore.”  He considered her eyes for a moment, then shook his head ruefully.  “The day after I caught Chang Xutao, I could hardly move at all.  But it was a good sign.” 

            She frowned.  “How so?” 

            He canted his head to one side, considering his answer.  She resettled her weight and waited; Jake had nearly identical body language when he was genuinely debating how to explain something.  “It was an acceptable price,” he announced after a moment.  “I had to sprint as fast as I had at New Edwards, to catch Xutao.  It was… true, again.” 

            She closed her eyes as the implications sunk in.  “You couldn’t run, before that.” 

            He snorted.  “It was fifteen months before I could _walk_ , Noin.” 

            That _would_ explain the newfound patience, wouldn’t it?  She couldn’t even imagine managing such an injury.  _Over a year…_   “ _Libra_?” 

            “Hn.”  After a moment, he added, “I would recommend against fighting mid-atmo fall.” 

            So there was a price to consistently doing the impossible after all, it seemed. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “I understand,” Relena was muttering into the phone.  “I’ll work out all the necessary adjustments and get back to you, but I’m positive it won’t be a problem.  I just need a few hours to get the paperwork ironed out.  They’ve actually offered to do this before, but there was no need at the time.”  A pause.  “Of course.” 

            Mai bumped the door closed behind her with one hip as Relena wrapped up her current phone conversation.  Seeing as she wasn’t using the vid function, it was probably the ambassador again; he didn’t have that capability on his cell.  It was just as well, seeing as, at the moment, the princess still wasn’t suited to be seen in any case. 

            That was what she had come to solve.  Approaching the couch, she mentally debated how she wanted to arrange the packages for Lena to go through. 

            “Of course, naturally.  I certainly intend to do exactly that, but it would also be good for you to talk to him yourself.”  The younger woman grimaced, though she took a moment to smile appreciatively at Mai and offer a little wave.  “I’m afraid I’m not sure I hold very much weight with him, so a more aggressive stance from your angle might be the best course; I can approach him more gently from an alternate direction afterwards and smooth any ruffled feathers.  I believe we will get the best results that way.”  She paused again, then laughed a little.  “Yes, well, it’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it?  We can negotiate new points after this one is settled, after all.  I won’t let him jeopardize the wellbeing of the people.  In the end of the day, it’s as simple as that.” 

            _Best sort by type,_ Mai decided after a moment, beginning to juggle the bags. 

            “I appreciate that, Ambassador, more than I can express.  Are we still on for lunch on Friday?  Hopefully negotiations with the Regime will have finished by then.  Alright.  I’ll be sure to send you the authorizations and new contract as soon as I have it.  Thank-you.  Good-bye.”  Ending the call, Relena dropped the phone on her desk and pressed her hands to either side of her head before meeting Mailin’s eyes with a weak smile.  “Hi.” 

            Mailin winked at her.  “G’day, love.  Done saving the world for the moment?” 

            “For the moment,” Relena agreed wryly.  “My brother’s bound and determined to screw us all over, I swear.” 

            “I’m not about to argue,” Mai returned easily as she continued organizing.  “Just to add salt to the wound, though, apparently a few news crews saw the carriers heading out to the base and put two and two together fast enough to catch the whole thing on camera, so there’s better imaging on it all than just the satellite feeds.  They’re blaring the footage all over the news.” 

            The princess grimaced and picked up the remote to switch the TV to the news before turning to actually focus on the clothes and sighing.  “You’re a lifesaver, Mai, thank-you.” 

            “It’s not a problem,” the major dismissed.  “I like to shop, and with everyone focused on what’s happened, I didn’t have to wait in any lines.”  She grinned.  “I agree it would have been altogether embarrassing to ask your colonel.”  Holding out the very pink bag with lingerie, she added, “And I even managed to find some pretty ones.” 

            The downside of being ridiculously famous was that it made it very difficult to shop like a normal person.  Unfortunately, when said celebrity still had a teenager’s changing body, things like gaining a cup size essentially overnight could happen, and all her nice shirts suddenly looked like she was trying to burst out of them.  Constantly in the public eye as she was, it was something of a crisis… and even if this morning hadn’t been utterly psychotic, if someone caught the princess out buying underwear, the rumor mill would have a heyday and twist it into scandal. 

            Thus, Mai had gone on something of a shopping spree this morning while Relena did her politicking.  She fully expected to take at least half of it back, but she had assumed variety and proper size was important, and they should be able to get at least a handful of outfits out of the lot.  The majority of girl’s pants had been getting visibly too tight around the hips for the past few weeks too, so she’d taken the liberty of getting a decent assortment slacks and jeans as well. 

            Her arms had about fallen off carrying it all up to the third floor.  It would have been easier if the handles of the damn bags didn’t bite into the skin so hard, because she could sure as hell carry a lot more weight than the clothing accounted for, but it was another story altogether when your circulation was vanishing by the second.  Lorenzo had been following her rather curiously throughout the house, but thankfully he didn’t like the nightingale floor leading into the office, so he had lost interest at that point.  She really didn’t need to get dog hair all over the new wardrobe. 

            She’d go play with him after Relena got into the shower.  He was such an attentive creature, especially considering she’d only had him for a week. 

            “Ooh, cute…”  The girl’s expression of actual delight made the extra effort with it.  She looked around for a moment, considering, before shrugging and shucking off her pajamas. 

            “When’s the colonel due back?” Mai asked curiously.  The door locked automatically, but it also opened automatically for Jake. 

            “Not for another hour at the soonest,” Relena assured her.  “And Dorothy and Mu ought to be arriving at Brussels any time now.”  She sighed.  “Olivia is coming by this afternoon… she’s been insisting on taking me to a late lunch at some restaurant she knows, and she says she wants to make sure the dog is settling well.” 

            Mai nodded, considering.  “You should ask her how she goes about her clothes too.  She’s not famous like you, but I can’t see her wandering a department store either.” 

            “That’s not a bad idea.”  She sighed again.  “This is so ridiculous.” 

            “I’m not about to disagree,” Mai returned easily, selecting a shirt and holding it out.  “But I also see it’s necessary.  Try this first.”  She winced as some of the battle footage came on and Heavyarms sent Epyon flying.  “Oh…  Do you think he’s alright?” 

            Relena didn’t even glance up.  “I’m sure he’ll manage.” 

            It was an easy way to kill time, and Mai watched the princess visibly brighten and cheer up, relishing the ‘girl time’ as it were.  Jake was far more courteous than most men, but in the end of the day, he was still very male.  And Dorothy… Dorothy was a drama queen fashionista, which, by definition, included the maturity level of a middle school queen bee.  The two noblewomen cared for each other a great deal, as far as Mai had been able to gather, but had next to nothing in common. 

            All the same, Mai wasn’t too surprised when, forty minutes later, they heard the floors outside the office chirp.  She also couldn’t help but be amused, however, by Relena’s squeak as she yanked a pair of jeans up over her hips… and tripped over the hem to fall flat on her back.  She rested one hand over her lower face to hide her smile as the office door opened and Jake came in, a confused and _almost_ alarmed expression on his face… before he focused on Mai and the pile of shopping bags.  “Lena?” he called tentatively. 

            “Just a minute…”  The girl was trying to finish snugging into her pants and doing up the buttons before getting off the floor.  _Note to self: next size up on those._  

            Jake let his eyes wander more pointedly over the brands on the discarded bags.  “Do I want to know?” he asked after a moment.

            “No,” Mailin informed him easily, giving him a dashing smile.  “You’re early.”  She debated for a moment, considering Relena as she climbed back to her feet.  “And the princess hasn’t quite graduated to a Long length on her pants, looks like.” 

            “I’m aware,” he noted dryly… which made Mai grin all the more broadly at him. 

            “Well, they’re cute,” Relena decided after a moment, moving around the couch and shifting her weight experimentally.  Mai blinked, a little surprised that they _did_ look good…  damn good, in fact, not too tight after all.  “Little hard to get _into_ ,” the princess amended, “but… fun.”  They certainly weren’t work jeans, but every teenager wanted a pair of hot high fashion jeans at least at some point, right?  Even if she only ever wore them around the house, Mai had figured it was worth a shot.  It was the little things that made a girl feel appreciated, after all. 

            “They are,” Jake admitted after a moment.  Shaking his head, he added, “I could probably lose you in a mall, with those and a t-shirt.” 

            She grinned at him.  “Jeans and a t-shirt make a disguise?  Not even a pair of glasses, huh?” 

            “Those only work for Superman,” Mai dismissed impulsively.  “A hat or bandana might do the trick, though.”  She had no idea if Jake was being serious, but she could already tell that the idea of a set of clothes to hide in plain sight greatly appealed to their princess.  “High heeled boots, maybe some jewelry you wouldn’t be caught dead in.”  She tilted her head to one side.  “That shirt would look nice with this neck scarf I passed by earlier, if you didn’t button it so high… maybe a camisole under it?” 

            “Hm…”  She just about cackled to herself when Relena turned to the mirror on the back of the bathroom door and began fiddling with the buttons, trying to decide how many she could undo without being indecent.  Despite being store-bought, the blue blouse that matched her eyes was a damn near perfect cut for her curves… and the colonel was trying _very_ hard to not notice. 

            It was downright adorable. 

            “Not to interrupt the fashion show,” Jake muttered after a moment, “but you told me to make sure you needed to be in the bath by ten so you would be ready to leave by noon, but now you have an appointment with Agatha Schiavonne downstairs at eleven, so you should probably go hop in.” 

            “Oh, you got a hold of her?  Excellent.”  She considered her reflection a moment longer and nodded.  “I’ll wear this one, then, and…”  She looked back to the couch strewn with clothes, biting her lip. 

            “The pale grey slacks?” Mai hazarded. 

            “Yes.  And…”  She wrinkled her nose and gestured a little wildly, starting to flush, in the direction of the lingerie pile of things to keep. 

            “Got it.”  She shook her head.  “Go draw your water and run down to your room to hang that shirt up, and I’ll take care of the rest.  We can organize what you didn’t get through when you’re done tonight.” 

            “Thank-you.”  Relena focused back on Jake.  “Any other news?” 

            His expression was amused as he walked towards her, looking the disaster on the couch over with some interest as he ticked off points on his fingers.  “You have a hair appointment for Friday, Dorothy has decided that Mu has a stick up her ass…”  He blinked as he caught sight of something very sheer and _lacy_ and shook his head.  “And we need to decide when to visit Brussels to check on your brother.  Olivia has something up her sleeve today, I’m sure, but that’s a general healthy assumption to run with for her ilk.” 

            “That’s a shirt,” Relena defended, seeing what had caught his attention.  Mai suppressed a snicker.  She hadn’t really expected the princess to like the overshirt, but it had caught her attention enough that she’d decided it was worth a shot.  If nothing else, her reaction had been worth it. 

            “That isn’t comforting.” 

            “I’m not keeping it.” 

            “I might hold you to that.” 

            The princess snickered and ducked into the bathroom, heading for the trap door down to her closet… leaving the office door wide open.  Letting out an annoyed sigh, the colonel briskly walked over and pushed it shut before leaning back against it, eyes shut…  and rapping the back of his head against it once, hard. 

            Mai raised one brow at him as he opened those pretty blues of his again and half-heartedly glowered at her, to which she grinned unabashedly. 

            He rolled his eyes… and banged his head against the door a second time. 

-

***

-

**Marlin, Texas – The United States**

            _“Yo traje alimento por usted, señora.”_

            Hilde pointedly ignored the woman’s voice, trying not to lose track of what she was doing.  Reducing the ambient radiation output had been relatively easy in the short-term, and while Xutao focused on the programming of that, she and Adam had been relegated to trying to fix the slew of mechanisms gone wrong inside the little bunker. 

            _“Señora, traje alimento; ¿tiene hambre usted?”_

            Of all the things they had expected to find, horrifying and otherwise, nothing quite this… pathetically _obnoxious_ had occurred to any of them. 

            There was a long-suffering sigh.  _“Usted trabaja demasiado duramente. Lo dejaré aquí. Gracias.”_

            Well, she knew that last word at least, but that was about as good as her Spanish got. 

            Unfortunately, no one here spoke a _word_ of English. 

            Adam, thankfully, was fluent, and had been able to get some answers out of the little…  the little underground _village_ they had stumbled across.  Some illegal immigrant had found the bunker more or less on accident almost two years ago and, upon finding it stocked full of nonperishable food, had invited all his friends and relatives, and then all of _their_ friends and relatives to his new home before locking the rest of the world out for safety reasons.  They had brought every piece of hydroponics equipment they could find with them too, and had lived rather well – until the generators started to run out of fuel.  After that, they had started to figure out how to jerry rig the generators to the base’s last-ditch nuclear reactor. 

            Great ideas, great ingenuity, impeccable survival instinct and heartwarming care for their neighbors… but shit execution. 

            Why?

            All the manuals, all the programs for controlling the damn thing, were in _English_. 

            All they knew was that a few months ago, the computer screens started flashing red and a bunch of gibberish they couldn’t understand every time they brought them out of hibernation. 

            More recently, everyone had started to get sick.  And it was no wonder, with how much radiation was seeping out of the _nuclear reactor_ that they had removed _over half_ of the damn shielding from. 

            She tried to remind herself that it didn’t count as base stupidity when the degree of pure _ignorance_ was this high.  No matter how much she wanted to screech at them, it really wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know better.  Unfortunately, that only made the whole situation worse. 

            _Well, at least we didn’t stumble into the nuclear holocaust after all._   This was considerably tamer than anything they had been prepared for, even if it made her want to cry tears of frustration. 

            Flopping the rest of the way against the ground, she considered her handwork.  Other than the final sauter, this piece looked pretty decent.  After the past few days spent wiring the connections _correctly_ , she was trying to get all the shielding on the reactor back into place.  _Or at least, well enough in place to get the job done._   Adam was focusing on the more domestic problems, like making sure they had been managing their plumbing and wiring well enough that they wouldn’t soon kill themselves some other creative way.  He had – correctly – assumed Hilde might be happier with a job that required a hammer and blowtorch more than troubleshooting appliances. 

            Now was probably a good time to see what the woman before had wanted, though it sounded like she’d left.  _Better late than never._   She was astounded at just how much could be gotten across the language barrier with gesturing and drawing and some small amount of charades.  Pushing out from underneath the behemoth of a machine she had been under, she pulled off her helmet and looked around.  They had gotten the radiation down to relatively safe levels right off the bat, and she was loaded with a purely ridiculous amount of radioprotectors, but she preferred to have extra layers of protection over her body all the same.  It never hurt to be too careful when you were getting up close and personal with an invisible killer.  Her jumpsuit was made out of the same blocking material – she was fairly sure she wanted kids someday, or at least the option to decide if she did, thank-you – and froze in disbelief as she saw the plate of food that had been left for her. 

            _Is that…?_  

            Half dashing forward, she knelt and examined the pale green leaves mixed with the canned beans and rice and god knew what else.  _It can’t be._   Quickly, she yanked off her gloves and snatched up a piece to pop in her mouth. 

            Light, crisp, moist… It tasted more like water than anything.  _Holy shit!_  

            She hadn’t had lettuce in _years_.  She hadn’t realized how much she missed it until just now, but…  Damn, when had fresh green food become such a novelty? 

            Settling back into a cross-legged position, she pulled the plate into her lap and began to eat with relish.  There were only little pieces mixed in with the rest, but these people, however pathetic in other ways, knew how to make a meal worth eating. 

-

***

-

**Jerusalem, Israel**

             The house was still empty. 

            Quatre pursed his lips as he debated what to do.  He had come by earlier in the day and rung the bell, to no answer.  When he moved to look through the windows again, he could tell that nothing had been shifted around, which was a clear indicator of Moira’s absence.  She liked to spend her evenings either watching TV in the living room or baking, and he had a clear view into both rooms.  It was equally obvious that they still lived there, however, with photos lining the walls and knick-knacks covering every available surface. 

            He had tried the doctor’s office first, but the man had moved to a different location, and Quatre was unsure if that was something of an attempt to dissuade patients like Heero and he had been from showing up to hold him at gunpoint.  Of course, it could also be assumed that very few of his patients – legitimate or otherwise – were invited into the Sronas’ home like the two of them had been, so he had thought to try there next.  It wasn’t too great of a jump to think that the doctor might want to avoid having suspicious characters lingering outside his office, especially if someone in the government had noticed the neutrality he displayed – the very reason he had chosen to go to him in the first place. 

            With no one home, however… 

            He would just have to wait until Dr. Srona closed up shop for the evening before dropping in, like last time.  This was his only link back to Heero, and that seemed like the best place to start.  “Come on Cory.  Let’s go get some dinner.” 

-

***

-

**Dachau, Germany – Evening**

            Relena looked around as they came into the restaurant, half expecting a dramatic change, but… no.  She was inwardly rather surprised by Olivia’s choice of venue, but her assessment essentially matched Jake’s; this was to say it was worth blinking at, but then only earned a shrug.  Neither of them would have guessed that the restaurant the young noblewoman insisted they just _had_ to try with her was a homespun diner, but it wasn’t entirely out of character either.  Relena preferred this over the more high end dining she had assumed she was surrendering herself to, in any case. 

            Olivia was already seated and waved them over happily.  Lin nodded to Jake and moved to sit on his own at a little table where he could watch the front and side entrances with ease while Mars moved back outside, now that he knew where they would be.  Vaughn had stayed in the car, keeping an eye on the back of the building.  Jake waved vaguely at Olivia as he turned away.  “Save me a seat?” 

            “Of course,” Relena returned automatically, and went to sit down while her bodyguard went to poke around the staff areas.  If this had been a bigger venue he would have stationed someone in the kitchens, but as it was, there was little need.  He couldn’t justify intimidating the staff in a tiny kitchen when, after an initial inspection, it served just as well to watch the exits and patrol periodically on the pretense of being bored and friendly.  Smiling at Olivia, she asked, “Have I happened on a favorite hideaway of yours?” 

            The redhead grinned.  “It’s as good as any other place.  I’ve actually only been twice, but I stumbled across something I just had to share.”  Her smile turned secretive.  “I thought you might appreciate it.” 

            That sounded either promising or horrid; unfortunately, she didn’t yet know Olivia well enough to guess which.  Instead, she decided to focus on an aspect of the establishment that she _did_ know she appreciated, even having only just arrived.  “I like that no one’s made a fuss over me yet.”  Some places, these days, she was virtually mobbed by well-meaning staff. 

            Though of course, there was still the chance that they simply hadn’t put two and two together yet.  If that was the case… _Well, I can dream until they dash my hopes._  

            “Good evening, ladies,” the waitress chirped as she bounced up to the table.  “Can I get you anything to drink?” 

            “Water, please,” Olivia decided without looking away from the princess, her eyes _sparkling_. 

            Debating exactly what she might have signed herself up for, Relena turned to meet the girl’s eyes- froze in surprise.  Honey blonde hangs hung over sky blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face.  Her teeth were straight and perfect, and other than the fact that her hair was long enough to pull into a tiny ponytail… it was nearly like looking into a mirror.  “Oh my…” 

            “Wow,” the waitress agreed, just as taken aback.  She nibbled at her lower lip and stared in apparent awe.  “And people always say _I_ look kinda like…”  Her eyes widened as apparently Relena’s identity actually clicked.  “Oh wow.  That’s almost _scary_.” 

            “What’s scary?”  Jake had finished his quick rounds and was walking towards them. 

            “Jake, come meet our waitress!”  It was a little bizarre, but also undeniably cool.  _They say everyone had a twin out there, don’t they?_  

            The teenager spun to stare at the colonel and gasped.  “Jake?”  Her tone was disbelieving.  “Jake Miller, is that you?”  When he didn’t immediately deny it, she let out something of a squeak.  “Oh my God!” 

            The blonde man frowned, choosing to not react to her striking resemblance.  “Do I know you?” 

            She laughed a little nervously and offered him a sheepish smile.  “Oh, well, you wouldn’t remember me, but you worked with my sister about six years ago, in L2…  Adelia Fonne?” 

            Jake blinked, and Relena saw recognition light up his eyes as they widened with delight.  “ _Daniella_?”  At her quick nod and eager smile, he dashed forward and pulled her into a hug.  “Look at you!”  he crowed, half spinning her so she giggled.  “All grown up and beautiful!  What are you now, sixteen?” 

            “Fifteen,” she corrected, pulling back.  “And you’re younger than Addie, right?  So… twenty-two?” 

            “Not for another two months, but close.  How _is_ Addie?”  He frowned.  “And while we’re at it, why are you on Earth?”  

            “Oh, well…”  The girl shifted in an embarrassed sort of way that Relena found herself suddenly grateful she didn’t do herself.  “We’re getting by.” 

            _Now if that doesn’t set off warning bells, I’m not  sure what qualifies._   Picking up on Jake’s comment, she led with one of her own.  “When did you leave the colonies?” 

            “Oh, November of 195.  Nat proposed to Addie and asked us to move down to live with him.”  Her expression was sorrowful, but in a tired sort of way that made it obvious that the pain was old.  “He was a soldier, though, so when Treize called everyone to fight at _Libra_ …”  She shook her head.  “He never made it back.  Uncle Madison told us he never wanted to see us again if we really had the gall to run off, so we didn’t have anywhere to go back to, and Addie already had her baby on the way, so we just settled in.  I started off here washing dishes, but waiting tables pays better, so here I am.”  This all had been directed at Jake, who was trying to make her meet his eyes, but then she bit her lip again and focused nervously on Relena.  “Which reminds me…  What can I get you to drink, ma’am?” 

            “Waters all around, for now,” Jake decided, not wanting to drop the subject.  “There are funds allocated to the families of the soldiers who died.  Aren’t you getting that?” 

            Daniella glanced quickly back to Relena and Olivia as if to check that they were okay with the continuing interrogation in favor of their order, before focusing back on Jake and shaking her head.  “Nothing was really official…  He hadn’t even bought a ring yet because they used the money for my passport and ticket down instead.  He was going to buy her one after he got his next check, but… well.”  She shrugged.  It was fairly evident that if she had ever been bothered by that slight, she had long since gotten over it. 

            “What about the baby you mentioned, though?” 

            The girl’s smile was bright and genuine.  “Oh, he’s just fine.  Addie works a couple different places as a cleaning lady during the day, and I work evenings, so one of us is always home with him.  We don’t see too much of each other in between rushing in and out of the apartment, but we’re not wanting bad for anything either.”  Shaking her head slightly and offering a gentle smile, she reached out to clasp both of Jake’s hands.  “It’s really good to see you, though.”  Looking back to the table, she announced, “I’ll be right out with your water, and I’ll take the rest of your order whenever you’re ready.” 

            Jake looked a little lost as they watched her walk away… maybe a little heartbroken.  _Disenchanted,_ Relena decided, feeling her own heart wilt a little at the sight.  Then his stance straightened, and he met her eyes with a determined glint in his own. 

            She preempted him before he could voice the idea in his head.  “We _do_ need a maid or two, and I don’t see any reason why the little one would be a problem.”  She paused, then decided to ask the obvious question – the reason they still didn’t _have_ a maid.  “You trust them?” 

            “Addie’s an old friend,” He told her seriously.  “She has a good heart and a practical mind.  We were both hired on for some projects in L2, and she almost always had little Daniella with her; their parents had died in the plagues that rose up in 185.  Technically they were being raised by their uncle, but,” he grimaced, “he was alternately either an asshole or not around.”  He let out a deep breath and moved to sit down, watching the door to the kitchen.  “Apparently, when it rains, it pours.  I’d like to go talk to Addie tonight, see if Dani isn’t making it sound better than it is, and extend the offer.  It’ll probably take them a week or so to wrap up any business, and I want to be sure that that’s a pleasant week instead of a hellish one.”  Relena nodded, not thinking of any particular point to dispute. 

            Olivia, meanwhile, chuckled.  “Not to mention you’ll have at least one, maybe two body doubles living in the same house as you.  Once the neighbors get used to seeing them all the time, if they catch a glimpse of you, they will likely assume it’s one of them and not you.”  Her smile widened into a smirk as she rested her head on one upturned palm.  “And if you want to be out and have everyone think you’re home, you could ask them to spend time, say, reading near a window in view of the street.” 

            Relena narrowed her eyes at the other woman speculatively.  “You were trying to arrange this.” 

            She raised her brows coolly.  “I arranged to show you the _possibility_ , since I had seen her.  I hadn’t expected you to immediately insist she ought to _move in_ with you.  But,” she flicked her eyes to Jake, “I also didn’t suspect you had a previous connection to the girl that you might claim.”  She tilted her head away from her hand.  “I feel I must note that I had no idea she had a close-knit family to go with her.  In either case, however, such an arrangement would be beneficial to both parties, and cost no one anything just to open the door.” 

            The princess studied the other woman for a long moment before nodding.  That fit in with what she had already deciphered of Olivia.  While she delighted in complex subtleties the way Dorothy did – she suspected it was a means both noblewomen used to convince themselves they were clever and thereby was simply an exercise in ego-stroking – she had a very strong focus on mutually beneficial relationships.  Olivia…  believed in a system working the way it was intended.  The redhead would be the first to argue that in an ancient feudal system, if a lord behaved properly, there was nothing wrong with serfdom – both parties benefited from the arrangement.  She would instead argue that the problem with classic feudalism was that there were no decent checks in place to ensure that said lord _didn’t_ take advantage and destroy the balance. 

            So… no, this maneuver was _perfectly_ in line with Olivia’s nature.  Perfectly mutually advantageous arrangements… and there was a level of comfort to be had in that, however cold it might outwardly appear.  It was something she was beginning to trust that she could rely on… and it was a good trait in an ally.  “What did you think of this morning’s show?” she asked curiously, her tone purposefully bland. 

            Olivia smiled and rested her head back in her hand.  “My brother demanded I ask you all sorts of searching questions that I had to assure him I could repeat nigh verbatim.  They all essentially boil down to him wanting to know how you think he ought to behave towards Milliardo concerning the incident.” 

            “Your familial loyalty is simply astounding,” Relena noted dryly. 

            She rolled her eyes.  “When he gets this worked up about something, he desperately overcomplicates it.” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands - Devil's Den  
**

            “Amos got a girlfriend!” 

            “Did not!” 

            Nolan just laughed as he dashed around the couch to avoid the other teenager, who looked about ready to smack him.  “She’s totally your girlfriend!” 

            Amos looked about ready to _strangle_ his pseudo-brother.  “Having a friend that’s a girl does _not_ just mean-” 

            “She bought him a phone!” Nolan appealed to the other Devils in the den. 

            “It doesn’t mean anything!” 

            “A phone?”  Karina asked in surprise, looking up from her crossword. 

            “A _nice_ phone, with paid net and everything,” Nolan confirmed. 

            Amos was blushing furiously now.  “It’s because she moves around so much that she only gets to talk to her mom and brother,” he defended.  “She said it was the only way she could stay in touch at all.” 

            “A _long distance_ girlfriend,” Robby mused, winking conspiratorially at Nolan.  “Even better.  There’s that whole thing about different area codes, isn’t there?” 

            “You’re impossible!” Anika exclaimed, smacking him upside the head as she moved to the kitchen.  “Don’t teach him your bad habits.” 

            Amos was even redder now, and he grit his teeth.  “She _isn’t_ my girlfriend.”  The statement was half growl. 

            Rina picked up on the fact that he was actually bothered about the teasing and tried to sooth the boy’s ego.  “There’s nothing wrong with it, whether she is or isn’t,” she assured him.  “Like you said, if she’s rich enough that buying you a phone was easy convenience, then I’m sure that’s all she meant.  From what I heard her say while she was here, she doesn’t really have any friends except her brother, and he’s family.”  She couldn’t help but smile at him as she noted, “You have to admit that you two get on like peas in a pod, though.  I bet she _does_ like you.” 

            The fifteen-year-old, who had started to calm, glowered at her.  “She’s _twelve_.”  Forcing a deep breath, he reaffirmed, “She’s twelve, brilliant, way cool, and she’s my _friend_.” 

            …And the girl probably did like him, but there was no reason to try to continue the argument.  Rina was debating how to end the conversation on a comfortable note when a catchy but odd bit of music started to play. 

            It was coming from Amos’ pocket. 

            “Better answer that,” Nolan sing-songed, then bolted out of the room before the other boy could retaliate. 

            Amos glared at them all and pointedly headed for the door that led outside as he pulled the phone out.  “I’m going to work.” 

            Rina snickered after he’d left, and she wasn’t the only one.  Renee looked up at them all from where she was idly playing on a blanket by her mother’s feet, curious for a moment, before focusing back on gumming the iced teething ring Kay had bought for her.  Pursing her lips and nodding seriously at her, she asked, “It tastes that good, huh baby?”  Her little girl gurgled at her happily, and Rina smiled before picking her crossword puzzle back up, tuning out the conversation sparking back up around her as ambient noise.  She didn’t like to be alone, but she wasn’t feeling social either…  and it was a good way to relax, being with everyone without having to pay attention.  She was off work today, and intent on enjoying it being lazy. 

-

***

-

**Frankfurt, Germany**

            “So what that _means_ , is that he’s going to be at least a day later than he said,” Marlé concluded grumpily.  “I’m seriously thinking I’ll ditch.” 

            Odin, of course, hadn’t been able to really say why he was going to be longer than he’d said, but that wasn’t exactly something to tell her new friend.  All the same, though, the Sronas were _not_ her mother, and however nice they were, she was really _done_ traveling with them.  It wasn’t like she couldn’t take care of herself, and their flight back to Jerusalem was scheduled for the morning. 

            _“You’re ditch your grandmother?”_ Amos sounded scandalized. 

            “Well, really she’s Odin’s stepmom,” Marlé dismissed.  “And besides, I haven’t told them that Odin isn’t going to meet me where he said yet, so I’d just say we’re meeting up the next city over, and let Odin know I took the train back to Amsterdam.” 

            _“You’re coming back?”_

            “Well, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.  I mean, if you’d rather I didn’t, I could wander to France or something, but I think I want to be near the ocean, so I’m not staying here.”  She didn’t want to, like, be overbearing or something, but if he was weirded out by her leaving the Sronas to their own devices, she didn’t want him thinking he was the reason she was doing it. 

            _“No, I don’t mind,”_ he argued.  _“I just…  I have school, and you wouldn’t…”_  

            “I’ll camp out in my hostel bunk and work on my programs or something when you’re busy,” she noted.  “I think I’m finally really getting somewhere with it, and it’s what I’d be doing anywhere.  I can do my own thing, Amos – it’s just if I’m in the same city, I _can_ visit when you’ve got time for it.  I don’t want to put my relatives out telling them, because then they’d cancel their flight and wait here with me instead of going home, because I don’t have a ticket.”  She shrugged a little.  “Odin doesn’t really care either way, so long as I keep him posted and don’t do something stupid.”  _Like get on the plane with the Sronas.  That would count as stupid._  

            She had to take care of a few things if she was really going to do it, though.  “Hey, I’ll let you know when I’ve got a better idea of when I’ll get in town, I’ve gotta do some stuff.”  It was as good an idea as any other, really.  “Catch you later.” 

            _“Catch you later,”_ he mimicked quickly, and she hit the disconnect before hopping to her feet to make sure her bag was packed. 

            It actually didn’t occur to her until after she had said her goodbyes to the Sronas, bought her ticket, and was already on a train that she’d never traveled alone before.  By then, however, it was a little too late to do anything but blink in surprise at the passing scenery as she tried to decide what that _meant_. 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base**

            It was… nice. 

            He honestly hadn’t expected that, for all that he hadn’t thought it would be hard to tolerate – he had managed well enough with people he liked far less in the past.  This, though…  He’d never been to anything like this. 

            He was up to almost his shoulders in hot water, which was great on its own, and though there were other people in the giant tub with him, they didn’t insist he join their conversations.  There was music in the background somewhere, a lap pool full of people, a few TVs, and as many voices as he’d expect in a city square… but beyond proximity, these things didn’t appear to be interrelated.  Groups mixed and separated as the night went on, and the atmosphere stayed very relaxed. 

            Nothing was _expected_ of him. 

            This was not to say he was ignored; soldiers smiled and waved, or raised a glass in cheers, or sometimes trotted over to hop in the tub or insist he try their drink.  They respected his boundaries… and some of the drinks were really good. 

            He considered his current favorite as he took another sip through the neon yellow straw.  Alcohol had never really peaked his interest before, but he was finding it fairly enjoyable, tonight.  There were definitely mental effects that came with it, but they were mild, at least at this dose… and despite having less in the way of side effects when compared to any of the painkillers he’d ever taken, it had a startlingly strong numbing effect on the deep throb in his leg.  It definitely wasn’t something he could use when he needed his full focus, but it might make a pleasant addition on the evenings after he had overextended himself, like tonight.  Its ready accessibility only made it that much more useful of a tool. 

            “Mm, you look happy,” Noin muttered as she climbed the stairs into the tub. 

            Odin smiled.  “I’m enjoying this more than I thought I would.”  He made sure not to be too obvious about it, but another revelation of the evening had been that the bikinis the soldier women wore were…  appreciatively distracting.  Abdul had happily informed him, upon seeing his attention wander, that so long as he didn’t ‘gawk like a schoolboy’, they wouldn’t mind being watched; something about how they would have worn something a little more conservative if they didn’t want to attract _some_ admiration.  Considering his memories of the modest one-pieces he remembered the noblewomen at Relena’s Sanc school wearing when in the pool, that seemed like a sensible conclusion. 

            Her hair piled in a messy bun on the back of her head and all her smooth skin and curves laid bare, Noin looked far more a beautiful stranger than Relena’s aide. 

            Then again, he supposed he was no more a gundam pilot now than Noin was Captain-General of Sanc.  So many things had changed… some irreparably, and some maybe for the better.  Too much had happened now to try to trace the decisions back and consider where other paths might have led. 

            The idea of having a gundam again, though… that had a lot of appeal.  He hadn’t realized how much he had missed piloting until today, and he knew himself well enough to recognize it was a craving he might never fully sate.  He had already started planning out what exercises he needed to add to his daily regimen to recondition his body for the cockpit; it had been the fine manipulation of the foot pedals that pushed him to the point of needing his cane.  The motions themselves came to him easily enough, but his muscles hadn’t been ready for the fast, minute repetition required for fast maneuvering.  It was just different enough from everything else he did that it made all the difference. 

            Noin smiled at him as she sank into the water and leaned back into one of the jets with a happy sigh.  “You buzzed yet?” 

            He considered that for all of one second before nodding decisively.  “Yes.”  His senses were definitely compromised and his thoughts were fluid.   But as the room had not yet begun to spin, he was fairly sure he hadn’t crossed over from ‘buzzed’ to ‘tipsy’ yet. 

            She grinned broadly, closing her eyes as she tilted her head back to rest on the edge of the tub.  “Always so honest.” 

            He frowned, considering; it was far from the first time she had said that.  “There isn’t any reason not to be,” he defended slowly. 

            The general didn’t open her eyes as she idly trailed the fingertips of one hand over the surface of the water.  “It’s just nice,” she explained, a little smile playing on her lips.  “A refreshing change.  I grew up surrounded by people always intent on showing only their best, proper, or preset face…  I think I’ve had my fill of mystery and intrigue, however charming.  Life provides enough of that to satisfy me, I think, without adding more.” 

            There was something strangely enchanting, graceful, even, about the way she was moving her hand, and he couldn’t quite figure out what.  “That makes sense.”  Tilting his head to one side as the pattern changed, he felt the need to note, “I’m not _always_ honest.” 

            She giggled, opening one dark violet eye to glance at him for a moment before resuming her pose.  “Oh yes, I haven’t forgotten.  I’ve made a point, in fact, to not ask questions that sound like orders.”  Giggling a little more, she shook her head, resuming her patterns.  “Damn cell phone…  How _is_ Marlé, by the way?  Weren’t you supposed to meet back up with her tonight?” 

            “She went to visit a friend,” he explained, still focused on the woman’s movements.  “She wouldn’t have decided to do it if she wasn’t comfortable, so she ought to be safe enough.  Her instincts are good.” 

            “Good for her,” the woman murmured.  “The first steps are usually the biggest.” 

            He shrugged, still trying to sort out _why_ her hand was so fascinating.  The best he could come up with was that it had something to do with the alcohol in his bloodstream, and that idea was even more disturbing than the notion that…  there was something unique…  that thought didn’t actually go anywhere that made sense, actually. 

            _Definitely inebriated._

            The water swished forward in a small wave as Abdul pushed himself their way, letting himself sink up to his neck.  “Sweet Lucrezia,” he crooned playfully.  “You finally decide to grace us with your presence!” 

            Not opening her eyes, she used thumb and forefinger to flick water at him.  “I was busy socializing with everyone, raising morale and the like,” she informed him dryly.  “Remind me why I agreed to come do your job for you, please?” 

            “So I could look manly and important hanging out with the hero of the hour,” he returned easily, his tone implying this was pure logic.  “This also raises morale, yes?” 

            She snickered as she opened her eyes to give him an incredulous look before glancing back to Odin.  “Can you believe him?” 

            He blinked, _fairly_ sure the man hadn’t been serious… but the expression on Abdul’s face wasn’t exactly encouraging.  In lieu of anything relevant to add, another phrase of Marlé’s came to mind that he was at least fairly sure was true.  “I had nothing to do with it.” 

            Abdul laughed uproariously, and Noin pushed him back across the tub with one foot while she dissolved into giggles.  Odin smiled, but mostly only because they were laughing – he was fairly sure he’d missed something, but was willing to go along with it for the moment.  He had a question he had been meaning to ask for a while now that the Maguanac had reminded him of, and it was frustratingly difficult to keep in mind while the other pilot caught her breath. 

            She had programmed herself into his phone originally as ‘Lu’, and while during the war he had never been entirely sure what her first name even _was_ , she had used it so rarely, he seemed to hear it near constantly now.  She had been going on about being plain a minute ago… 

            When she seemed to have calmed herself somewhat, he asked, “Why do they call you Lucrezia?” 

            “Mm…”  She settled her head back on the tub rim again, but kept her eyes open, meeting his.  “Why do I call you Heero, Heero?” 

            …That was a very good question.  One he didn’t have a very definitive answer to.  Heero Yuy wasn’t really…  Well, it _had_ really been his name at some point…  and it was all he’d ever given her to call him… though actually, he didn’t think he’d ever introduced himself, someone _else_ had told her that was his name… 

            She probably thought it was _actually his name_. 

            She shook her head and went on; either she decided she wasn’t getting an answer out of him any time soon – _probably accurate_ – or it had been a rhetorical question.  “I only call you Yuy when we’re on a mission, you might have noticed.” 

            That was a far simpler explanation than he had been expecting.  There were a few holes in the theory, however.  “But Relena always-” 

            “I also might have been trying for a bit more formality than was necessary in the past,” she interrupted with a grimace.  “I…”  She looked away from him, staring at the far wall.  “I wanted… to be seen as something very particular.  I spent years moulding myself into that figure only to realize, up at _Libra_ , that I didn’t even know what it _was_.”  She offered him a rueful smile and closed her eyes again.  “I’d spent so long chasing a fairy tale that I forgot I really only knew maybe a third of the story to begin with.  I decided I was done with flights of fancy, and took some time to get my head together, and remembered that before I started sacrificing everything for an ideal dream… I was Lucrezia.  And I still am.  It just… got a little buried for a while.” 

            That… sounded eerily familiar.  They had made him bury who he had been during the retraining, forced him to focus on the ideals of emotionless, perfect performance, but by the end of the war… then after…  When he had started trying to decide what to do with himself, he had tracked back what he remembered from before Odin had died – started living by the codes he had been taught as a child.  He was more than aware he had continued remaking a mimicry of his old life, teaching Marlé and taking her with him everywhere the way Odin had looked after and taken care of him.  And… he was actually enjoying life again. 

            “Odin,” he announced abruptly, sitting up and meeting her eyes. 

            She blinked and focused on him.  “Hm?” 

            “Heero Yuy is just a name,” he explained.  “I don’t mind it, it’s mine too now, but…”  He licked his lips.  “I’m Odin.”  That statement either made perfect sense or none at all, he was fairly sure, but hopefully Noin… Lucrezia… could piece the meaning together. 

            She seemed lost in thought for a moment, turning over the new piece of information in her mind, before smiling and sitting forward to hold out a hand.  “Nice to meet you, Odin.  I’m Lucrezia.” 

            He laughed, that fantastic bubbling of emotion rising in his chest the same way it had this morning as he ran for Heavyarms.  He couldn’t explain it… but something had just… 

            He shook her hand firmly, and as an afterthought offered her his drink, which she grinned and took a long sip from before passing back. 

            He’d figure it out later. 

-

***

-

**Jerusalem, Israel**

            “Can I help you?” 

            He didn’t recognize the man from before, but that didn’t mean anything.  He could hear water running somewhere out of sight.  “I was hoping I could see Dr. Srona,” he announced after a moment.  “Is he still in?” 

            “He is,” the man noted, looking them over critically…  but not in the typical way, he realized.  He wasn’t looking down on them… he was looking for injuries, confused at finding none.  “Come on in, both of you…  If you could tell me what the problem is, I can get what’s needed while you talk to him.” 

            Someone turned off the faucet.  He could feel muted curiosity… and easygoing resignation, when he focused.  Two years ago, he would have had to strain to his limits and only gotten the barest edge of the emotion from such a disciplined mind as the doctor, but for better or worse, his time in the desert had ripped his abilities bloody and screaming into the open. 

            Everyone acted like he had taken in Cory and saved him…  But in truth, he didn’t think he could say his mind was still intact if he hadn’t found the quiet boy’s peacefully blank psyche to revel in. 

            “We’re actually not hurt at all,” he admitted.  “It’s been a while, but the Sronas are an old acquaintance, and I was actually just hoping to catch up.” 

            Sam Srona came into his line of sight, drying his hands on some paper towels as he focused on them…  and obviously didn’t recognize him.  Still, it was good to see a face from before; he hadn’t known the man more than in passing, but the doctor had treated he and Heero better than anyone else had for over a year, before their visit.  He had helped them despite the risks, and gone far beyond what his medical code required he offer his patients.  “Doctor,” he greeted, “It’s good to see you.”  He had been afraid that he wouldn’t find the man at all, and he didn’t think it would be possible to find Heero without anything to build from.  “I tried to stop by your house first, but no one was home, so I thought I would try your new office.” 

            The older man frowned.  The note about visiting his home was a definite clue, but apparently not enough of one, with how much he had changed.  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t quite recall…” 

            He chuckled and shrugged.  He hadn’t expected the doctor to recognize him, but it still gave him a thrill that he was properly anonymous now.  “I was wondering if you would.  I grew, and changed.”  He gestured at his face, offering another hint.  “You actually helped with this part, though; my eyes used to be blue, but you provided drops to change them.”  He had debated asking for more of the solution, considering the rather distinct blue flecks scattered throughout his now honey-colored irises, but had decided he liked it; he had changed enough that the peculiarity shouldn’t really matter.  When the doctor still only appeared to be wracking his mind, he decided enough was enough and added, “My friend stayed with you while his leg healed. I was hoping you could tell me which way he went, once he recovered.” 

            Confusion reigned for another long moment before a spark of sharp disbelief lit the man like a beacon and he took a few steps forward to peer into his face.  Quatre let him, unable to help a pleased grin at the reaction.  He was more than happy to let the surprised wave of _joy_ wash over him as the man reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace.  “It’s good to see you!” he exclaimed as Quatre hugged him back.  This was more emotion than he had been expecting out of a mere acquaintance, but he could hardly complain.  “We’d given you up for dead!”  Pulling back, he admitted, “We had hoped, but…  he wasn’t sure you would have been alright with leaving him behind.”  He shook his head.  “Where are my manners?  This is my son-in-law, Matthew.  Matt, this is-” 

            “Katriel,” Quatre inserted smoothly, holding out his hand to shake. 

            “I was going to say Odin’s friend, but a name works too,” Sam noted, amused. 

            _Odin._   There was one clue, at least, and would give him something to work off of if they didn’t have anything more solid.  He wondered why his friend had chosen it, though; he wouldn’t have thought Norse mythology was something that would pop into the taciturn soldier’s head. 

            “In any case, the women of the family decided to take a vacation touring through Western Europe, with all the tumult from northern Africa going on,” Dr. Srona went on to explain.  “We thought it might be best to limit any risks of violence if Colonel Mitchell didn’t catch all his stragglers.  We’ve been sleeping in office the past two weeks, but they’re due back tomorrow, so we were planning on heading home tonight.”  He shook his head a little, eyes sketching over him again and again, taking in the new details.  “You’re welcome to stay the night, if you would like; we have plenty of room for you and your friend.” 

            There was amusement when he focused on Cory, which almost put Quatre’s back up, but it wasn’t with any of the twisted insinuations that usually accompanied that line of thought.  It was decidedly bland and innocent, but still there… in a warm way.  There was no way to ask, though, as it wasn’t obvious in his facial expression, so he decided to just leave it lie.  _Cory probably reminds him of someone he cares for._   “I appreciate the offer, but we were intending to catch the train north in a few hours.”  He shifted his weight and shrugged his shoulders.  “I was mostly hoping that you had known where Odin intended to head next.” 

            “Ah.  That, in particular, is not something I know.”  _Damn._   “He moves around so much I doubt even _he_ knows beyond a few hours, some days.” 

            Even as his hopes dropped, however, he caught the hint, the implications.  He didn’t have a chance to probe before the doctor continued.  “I don’t have his number, with the way he goes through them, but Moira does.”  He grimaced and shook his head.  “With the difference in time zones and the current hour, however, I rather doubt she will pick up her phone.  She’s not a woman who wakes easily.” 

            Quatre blinked, stunned, then smiled broadly.  “He stayed in direct contact?”  He had never even considered that option. 

            “Well, not originally, but Moira got her hooks in well enough that he came back for a visit a few months after he’d rushed out,” Dr. Srona explained cheerfully.  “If you still have a few hours, why don’t we get ourselves some dinner?  If you really must leave tonight, I’m sure you can give me an email address to forward along in the morning?” 

            “We already ate,” Cory admitted, seeming to warm up to the stranger a little. 

            “Dinner for me and dessert for you?” the man suggested without missing a beat.  “I’m certain there’s some sort of ice cream decadence stashed away in my freezer.”  He winked at Quatre.  “She insists it’s for emergencies.” 

            “Or keeping the peace,” Matt noted dryly, crossing his arms.  “I’ve certainly seen it stop what looked to be a hell of a warpath at least twice.” 

            Quatre shook his head, grinning.  The doctor’s emotions were entirely genuine and as bright as a child’s, which was always pleasant, and though the other man seemed more reserved, it was only that his emotions were low-key, not mixed.  “I think we would enjoy that.” 

-

***

-

**Brussels, Belgium – Night**

            Before today, Milliardo hadn’t believed so much could go so horribly wrong in the span of twelve hours.  Barton had beaten him soundly back into Dr. Sanders’ frustratingly steadfast, stubborn care.  At least that wasn’t entirely his own fault – Epyon _had_ been malfunctioning – but the truth was even more depressing than the alternative.  China was apparently dropping its isolationist stance for the first time in _millennia_ in favor of his enemies, and he couldn’t do a thing about it; he had lost the fraction of leverage he had over them this morning, and now had to rely on his sister’s graces to deal with them. 

            He rubbed his tongue hard over the roof of his mouth before realizing he was doing it, and bit the inside of one cheek gently as he grimaced.  His head was still spinning from the concussion he had sustained in the cockpit earlier, but Sanders had point blank refused to be put off again. 

            He would have thought physicians were above resorting to blackmail. 

            Apparently, however, it was an acceptable method for coping with ‘stubborn jackasses who don’t understand their limits or know what’s good for them’.  Milliardo frankly hadn’t been cognitive enough to come up with a properly convincing argument for continuing to refuse treatment, especially when the pain was searing lightning hot,  but this was… abhorrent. 

            _Three days._   He’d argued the man into leaving him alone if this didn’t go away within three days; surely he could claim that much after the rather spectacular debacle that news crews had managed to get full footage of.  _I can write it off as the lingering effects of the concussion._   And hopefully avoid face-to-face contact. 

            The mop-up in northern Africa was going well, at least.  He wasn’t even sure where to begin with the problems further south anymore, but clearing out those psychotic anarchists had to be a decent start for sorting out that continent, and in the meantime… 

            _Epyon._

            He needed a software engineer.  One of the best, who had worked with custom suits before.  Unfortunately, he was fairly sure the best were all either dead, at this point, or out for his blood. 

            Not for the first time, he wondered if Treize had had any idea what kind of _nightmare_ he had created in his gundam.  Considering the fact that the man had simply given the damn thing away, he was starting to find that possibility more and more likely.  Treize had been a superb pilot, but he had decided Epyon was too much for him – _despite_ having had no problems with Tallgeese or its various reincarnations.  Despite the fact that Tallgeese had a talent for killing its pilots.  Wing Zero and Epyon were both just as maddeningly powerful as Tallgeese, but both newer suits had a distinct programming difference from the gundam archetype: Zero. 

            Epyon was incapable of high-level combat without Zero.  Its programming was essentially corrupt. 

            It hadn’t shown up in the diagnostics because on a theoretical level, it was fine.  However, once the systems sped up past a certain point, where calculations needed to be made and reacted upon within microseconds, depending on the results for smooth movement, there were blatant gaps several milliseconds wide. 

            The best analogy his diagnostic team had been able to give him was that of the old Blackbirds, the spy planes before technology had sorted out metals capable of resisting thermal expansion.  On the ground, it was incomplete, with gaps between the plates that made it whole; but flying at Mach III, the metal expanded and made the plane perfectly capable where otherwise it would have been falling apart. 

            Zero was meant to fill those gaps in Epyon’s coding, because even with modern technology as it was, the untapped power of the human brain outperformed the greatest processors.  Zero’s unique ability to interface directly with the pilot’s brain, sync with it, and turn the mind into a probability supercomputer was what made it so unstoppable. 

            Unfortunately, dark, psychotic urges and distance variables were equally valid data; Zero didn’t understand enough about the human mind to differentiate the two. 

            Milliardo could never trust himself under the influence of Zero again.  Not after what had happened last time.  He needed solid programming to fill the gaps… and considering the damage the battle at _Libra_ had done to him, he needed to craft something with better variations for considering the G forces exerted on the pilot than Tallgeese had used. 

            He had people working on it, but it was…  a disaster as bad as not realizing the problem before trying to fight a gundam with it.  Ideally, the information was out there for the taking somewhere, but he had no guarantee Wing Zero hadn’t been crafted on the same principle.  And even if it did exist, he had put relatively little effort into counter-intelligence since his rise to power.  Too many would like to see him fall, and he was no tyrant, capable of instilling fear so strongly into the survivors of his madness that they would be too terrified of repercussions to revolt.  Perhaps in his circumstance that was a weakness, but not one he would ever wish he was without.  He might have done something monstrous, but he was _not_ a monster. 

            Some things simply had to be done. 

            He looked up when the door clicked open without a knock, and eyed his general appraisingly.  “Lee.”  He looked…  _Ah._   If it didn’t feel so surreal as fate, he might have had the urge to laugh.  _Of course._   “Where?” 

            The man closed his eyes for a moment, then shut the door behind him and strode forward to slap a folder onto his desk.  “L1-X16426.  All we have are a few images from a nearby satellite as proof of the invasion.  All contact otherwise, lost.” 

            Milliardo leaned forward and opened the folder, glancing at and flipping the first few pages as he ignored the odd way they felt on his fingertips, then focusing on what he already knew: L1-X16426 was one of his more important midrange bases, a perfectly positioned relay.  _An excellent first strike._   Of course, it would be.  “How wide is our blackout?”  _Twelve clusters, at least._  

            “Thirty-eight colonies confirmed, fifty-three overdue and suspected.” 

            Milliardo nodded.  Six colonies to a cluster…  _Fifteen confirmed.  Sixteen likely._   That would keep them neatly concealed at the core of it all…  With outside communications cut, literally anything could be happening in there, and with that wide of a bubble… 

            Sometimes, he despised space. 

            “We’re lucky they missed their timing on the shots, or we wouldn’t know what was in there at all,” Lee muttered, but his cheek twitched as he said it. 

            Normally, Milliardo would have let it go, but he just didn’t see the point in dancing around the subject, leading into the possibilities.  “You don’t believe that.” 

            He closed his eyes and jerked his chin to one side in concession, but didn’t bother apologizing.  “No.  The rest of the execution was too perfect.  The preparation this took…  either these images were unavoidable in order to accomplish a simultaneous goal, or-” 

            “It’s a declaration,” Milliardo finished tiredly, letting the papers drop back to the first thermal image in the stack.  A solid formation of carriers, perfect, even…  and something else he couldn’t begin to identify that was flying under its own power.  It was a firm statement… almost artfully so. 

            “We shall need to craft a suitable response, then,” he murmured, resisting the urge to rub at his eyes. 

            “…You should get some sleep, sir.” 

            Milliardo nodded.  “You as well.  We’ve got our work cut out for us in the morning.” 

-

***

-

**July 2 nd 198 – Wednesday – Prague, Czech Republic**

            _Treize, you sly son of a gun_ , Sally mused fondly, trying not to laugh outright.  _This has you written all over it, but you knew he wouldn’t see the truth of it.  You’ll hide out in the open now, and make him come to you._  

            If he’d been standing in front of her, Sally could have kissed the man.  A feint, a taunt, hints of intrigue that reeked of power…  If they were lucky, Marquise would fall for it hook, line, and sinker before recognizing the unique flair of his “dead” friend.  And if Treize kept to himself in space until the situation stabilized enough on both sides to bring in liaisons, that meant she could stop worrying so much about counter-ops, and possibly kicking over his sandcastles on accident.  He still had infiltrated just about everywhere, she could assume, but she gave people a chance to run as a matter of course – Lucrezia still had nightmares of watching her students’ dormitories burn to the ground.  Sometimes that sort of tactic couldn’t be helped, but Sally found collateral damage appalling at best and thus believed it a last resort best abandoned in all but the most extreme circumstances. 

            Ramming _Libra_ with _Peacemillion_ had been one such circumstance; the entirety of the planet would have died if they had held back, there. 

            In truth, however, she had lived through far too many of those situations in her twenty-five years, both in her homeland and elsewhere.  Hell, she’d _met_ Lucrezia in a damned gory situation… but at least in that instance, they had all been soldiers.  Warriors died – it was part of the career path they tried to cover with frills, but it was a simple fact that you had to either accept or go mad with when you joined up.  The majority of people out there, however, hadn’t signed up for any of that shit… and yet they were right in the middle of it. 

            In any case, Treize had presented an ideal solution for the time being, and she was perfectly sure he’d gift-wrapped it for her as much as he had his old subordinate.  He’d stay in his sandbox, and she in hers; they’d talk once their castles were a little less fragile.  And in the meantime, they were able to work a hell of a pincer without any coordination whatsoever. 

            She’d gotten worse presents before. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Theories? Personally, I really loved this chapter on practically all points… Odin and Lucrezia rather ran away with it, but Relena screeching at Zechs’ general makes me grin every time I look back to it too.  
> \--  
> \--  
> Sally Rant:  
> \--  
> I have some overall issues about Sally. The canon says she’s a medical doctor. It also introduces her as being nineteen. But, okay, a lot of people in this universe are damn far in their careers at a young age, I mean, Treize is leading OZ at twenty-four, and Une is supposed to be the same age as Sally, Noin, and Lucrezia, and no one bats an eye at their ages, so this is fairly normal. That might also be why they’re willing to take Relena as seriously as they do at some points of the show, except for the fact that it seemed fairly clear she was in high school during the show, but hey, we never saw the actual schoolwork (did we? I haven’t seen the show in forever…) so they could even be more at a college level, which would make sense with the school being so politically oriented and specific in a lot of ways, and it might make sense why all those people had no issue sending their teenagers off to Relena’s school. That or there are both early/fast tracks to follow for careers if you really know what you want at eleven years old, and then there’s what we would consider more normal of an education track. 
> 
> Thing is, Sally was a medical doctor when she was in Episode Zero, in 194, at 18, supposedly, and she apparently had also already specialized because she just transferred to the South J.A.P. Point medical facility where it first shows her in the show because Heero was taken there – where Duo rescues him and they jump out that 50 story window – one year later, and she’s pretty high up. Residency, I don’t care how condensed, is going to take a minimum of three years, so we have a DOCTOR AT AGE FIFTEEN, apparently. Say they condense current medical school by ditching all things not immediately necessary to understanding the body and cut it down to three years instead of four, from a little above average high school education, that means she GOT INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL (or at least the Alliance military version of it) AT THIRTEEN. And far more academic proficiency is required to be a doctor and understand just the conceptual so forth of the body workings than to go be a soldier, so she had to have spent more time and study at it, so even if she’s finished their version of high school at eleven… eleven-year-old brains, just in terms of development, are only barely reaching the level where they are capable to begin understanding highly conceptual stratagems like those involved in chemistry or advanced biology or a lot of kinds of math. That sort of set-up for medicine wouldn’t work unless you’re dealing with a genius, and Sally is point blank never vaguely suggested as being extraordinary beyond her ability to lead and pull off what she wanted to do with kinda shitty resources. 
> 
> Therefore, I’m making Sally a bit older, because I think this is kinda like the random date swapping surrounding Mariemaia where the creators were being really stupid with their timeline and not doing any research whatsoever. SHE'S TWENTY-THREE AT THE START OF THE SHOW, finished residency at twenty-two and went out on the Sanitation Squad bit she was on in Wufei’s Episode Zero, graduated medical school at nineteen, started medical school at sixteen. I’m sorry, I was pre-med and I’m still hip deep in medicine, and the previous timeline is just stupid and laughable. Seeing as it’s now MID 198, she’s twenty-five, while Zechs, Noin, and Jake are twenty-one and Treize is twenty-six. The increased age and would also make sense as to why she has more control and respect from her troops, especially if they all start so young as Zechs, Noin & co.  
> \--


	8. Circling Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old habits die hard - Odin misses half the implications of exactly what he's doing but has fun with it anyway, while the the Peacecraft siblings tear into each other and a new disaster looms. Everyone in Germany is lying about /something/ that's bound to get them into trouble, and further south, Quatre and Odin rejoin forces. 
> 
> Mariemaia and David are both honestly trying to be helpful, but all really, they've had better days. At least they're making new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just hops right back in where the last left off. But hey, 37 pages is good, right? 
> 
> \--  
> Edit:  
> \--  
> Jake's scene has a minor expansion in it that gives a little more history and psychology, but otherwise, it's just grammar and syntax updates. Sorry about the delay! Hope you enjoy it.

**_-_ **

**_ Circling Back _ **

_\--_

_ The Past: our cradle, not our prison.  There is danger as well as appeal in its glamour.  The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition. _ _–Israel Zangwill_

_\--_

_ But the development of human society does not go straight forward, and the epic process will therefore be a recurring process, the series a recurring series – though not in exact repetition. _ _–Lascelles Abercrombie_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**July 3 rd 198 – Thursday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – 6:40am**

            Relena gestured at Jake that she was done, setting down her gun and wiping at the sweat that had built up on her brow.  According to the clock, they’d been in the range for over an hour, which counted for something, seeing as her aim was still at least decent – if not good – but enough was enough.  Her arms ached, but she went through the motions of ejecting the magazine and checking to be sure there wasn’t another round chambered, despite the fact that she’d been counting.  She was pleased with herself to see she’d been right, and turned to leave the range while Jake picked up the weapon. 

            She let out a sigh as she was able to finally pull off the protective glasses and earmuffs and picked up a hand towel left on the table next to the little indoor range to properly wipe the sweat off her face.  The longer she let herself think about it, the more her arms felt like jelly…  but it was a new record for endurance, at least.  She smiled as she noticed that her water bottle was there too, with a sticky note on it from Mu, and reached for it thirstily.  She’d stop in the kitchen to refill it on her way out to the yard where Mu had started running laps without her; Jake had already mentioned he was skipping the run today to work with some of the newer recruits. 

            “Morning, Lena,” Vaughn chirped happily at her as he came down the stairs, Carlisle and Illian behind him.  The other two men murmured similar greetings, and she waved, still drinking.  Taking a break for air, she slung the towel around her neck and pushed her gear into a smaller pile to make room for theirs, then moved for the staircase herself as they finished coming down. 

            A run sounded good. 

-

***

-

**Metz, France**

            Marlé ripped the tag off her pants and handed it to the cashier with a grin, tugging her sweater back down over her waistband with her other hand; there hadn’t seemed to be any point in putting her old ones back on.  She was supposed to meet up with Odin in under an hour, but she’d figured he’d rather she ran a few errands without him instead of trying to be early.  He hadn’t batted an eye about her running around on her own, but she really wanted to see his reaction when he saw her. 

            She was pretty sure she was almost as tall as he was, now.  Not that Odin was tall, but still; five foot four was pretty awesome in her book.  Her mom had said that she probably still had a ways more to grow, because she was five eight, and her dad had been pretty tall too. 

            Odin had sounded pretty excited when he called…  She was kinda irked at how he’d put her off for a few days without any explanation then was suddenly trying to get her to rush, but he’d explain it as soon as they met up in person again.  Her mom hadn’t been as cool with the idea of her going around on her own, and she guessed she might have called Odin up to lecture him about it… but she really doubted that would bother her pseudo-brother.  He’d probably just point out that Marlé could mostly keep up with him when he was running full bore, and that she’d gotten pretty good at defending herself when they sparred too. 

            _And anyone looking for me now is probably looking for a girl **way** shorter.  _

            She bounced on her toes a little as she finished paying for her stuff and jammed it all into the top of her pack before pulling her coat back on and heading out the door, being careful to make sure the fabric settled casually as she settled her grip on the baton in her sleeve. 

            Time to find out what Odin had been up to without her.  She was getting sick of being left out. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – 7:10am**

            “Such a good boy… yes you are!” 

            Relena looked towards her tub in dismay as she came up through the trapdoor to the bathroom, really hoping she wasn’t hearing what she thought she was… and sighed.  Sure enough, Mai had the giant tub half full of soapy water…  with her giant white dog in the middle of it, covered in bubbles. 

            She didn’t even want to _think_ of the disaster that was going to be her office floor when her bodyguard tried to get the sopping wet creature _out_ of the room. 

            “Good morning, Lena!” the woman greeted cheerfully, looking away from where she was cording soap through the dog’s six-inch dreadlocks. 

            …It really wasn’t worth the energy to get mad about until after the mess was there to be fussed over.  “Good morning.”  She’d been planning on scrubbing down and using the onsen anyway.  Checking the clock – she’d made decent time despite starting later than usual on her morning run – she went to turn on the water in the onsen then slipped into the normal shower stall and started the water there too before going to lock the door to her office.  She’d just wash her hair really fast, and the tub would be full by then, and she’d have her normal amount of time in it despite her morning routine having taken longer than usual. 

-

***

-

**Metz, France**

            “Odin!” 

            Odin blinked in surprise at the girl even as he half caught and hugged Marlé back, startled… her head settled on his shoulder, instead of against his chest. 

            _…Did it **hurt** to grow so fast?_   He was going to have to make her test her limits again, so she knew how far her reach was… 

            “Not going to say anything?” she pouted as she pulled away. 

            He couldn’t help but frown as the most immediate problem came to mind.  “We need to test your tumbles and jumps before you take any heights again.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “Ever practical, Odin.  I haven’t slacked off, I’ve been staying in practice.  There’s a cool little park near Amos’ work that the local gang keeps trouble from starting in.”  She shrugged.  “I figured I’d wait for you before I scaled any more buildings, though.”  She frowned and reached over to touch one finger to his cane, concern lighting up her eyes.  “You doing okay?” 

            “I’m fine,” he assured her, glad to know she had noticed the deficit and taken the initiative.  “I overextended.” 

            Marlé made a face.  “Was it worth it, at least?” 

            He laughed, the memory alone making his pulse jump.  “Yes.”  He shook his head a little and turned, gesturing for her to follow.  “We’re going to go meet an old friend, and he’s a ways from here.  I’ll tell you about the past two weeks on the way.” 

            She practically skipped after him.  “Sounds good.” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – 7:30am**

            There was a sound of a fist tapping on wood.  “Relena?” 

            “Mm?”  Opening her eyes, Relena smiled; she could see curls of steam rising out of the water around her.  “I didn’t lose track of time, did I?” 

            “No, you’ve only been in there a few minutes,” Mu noted, sounding apologetic.  “But Hayden just took a call from the capital that your brother’s on his way here.” 

            _Well, damn._   Sighing, she unplugged the drain with her toes and stood, reaching for where she’d hung her towel.  “I’m getting out.  Is Jake busy?” 

            “He won’t be for much longer,” the American woman told her.  “He set the boys he’d been working with to wash off the gunpowder and just about everyone else to clean up their personal areas and finish unpacking the Fonnes so they look less transient.  He said chances were that Milliardo will want to wander a bit, and since we won’t know where until he does…” 

            “Better safe than sorry,” Relena agreed, unlatching the door to the onsen and stepping out.  “Make sure the trap door is locked, would you?”  Mai still had her dog in the tub, but she was scrubbing far more furiously now.  Mu’s hair was damp from her own shower, though she was fully dressed.  Thinking a moment, she decided, “I’ll see him in my study.  I’m not sure if he’s here on business or because he finally realized I moved out, but I might as well try to impress him in either case.”  Privately, she was glad that Dorothy was working out of her ‘townhouse’ today; she’d proven herself a powerful ally and good friend, but she wasn’t exactly in Milliardo’s good graces – she had, in fact, avoided him entirely since Christmas. 

            Quickly drying off, she strode over to the vanity to get ready.  Hopefully, the boys downstairs had a more exact timeframe for her brother’s arrival; Sebastian Dontelaine had an appointment in ninety minutes to discuss his workforce distribution.  He seemed to think it needed adjustment, and he wanted her opinion on what might be most appropriate… and as it was her first time meeting the new Dontelaine Duke, she had no intention of putting him off because her brother didn’t care about her schedule. 

            She rolled her eyes.  The man had probably decided she didn’t _have_ one.  _After all, I’m only out here having tea parties, not saving his behind whenever he screws up…_  

-

***

-

**Tivoli, Italy**

            Lucrezia grinned into her scarf and took another deep breath of air, relishing the feeling of walking down the street of her hometown, even if this was an area she had never frequented.  It was still too cold to really feel like home, but just seeing the skyline and familiar architecture sated some part of her longing… and it wasn’t as cold as last July, at least, for all that it ought to have been sweltering.  She was in leggings and jeans, a turtleneck, her scarf, and the light little leather that Heero… _Odin_ had bought for her.  The hat she was wearing probably fought off the cold too, but honestly, she was just wearing it with her hair down as a camouflage, the same as her brown contacts.  With the front of her jacket left open and gloved hands tucked into its pockets, she was comfortable. 

            For what felt like the thousandth time now, she caught a glimmer of purple in the black leather and fell in love with it all over again.  It was the kind of style she preferred, and it _literally_ matched both her hair and eyes… and she wondered again how conscious of a choice that had been on Odin’s part.  She’d been grumbling to herself for poor operational security about her current jacket under her breath, she had thought, but then the next time she’d seen him, he’d handed her the new coat… with colony-manufactured chocolate stuffed in an inside pocket. 

            It would have struck her as a sweetheart gift, if he hadn’t been so casual about it.  But when she tried to dissect the logic on his shipment for Heavyarms – and the damn pink _pony_ – she was fairly convinced that he just preferred that same sort of casual affection her father did.  She had asked if he known about something, out on a limb, and he’d responded just by delivering. 

            With anyone else, she would have said he had pointedly given her more than she could have possibly imagined.  _With Odin…  I shouldn’t read too deeply into it._  

            Although he did have a tendency to just _watch_ her with a focus she hadn’t seen directed at anyone else. 

            She thought about it for a moment before pulling her phone out of her pocket.  Sally had gotten her new information out of the Regime database after Odin had left Africa that she wanted to poke at him about; it probably wouldn’t be too hard to meet up somewhere just to talk business.  Spotting the bakery she had been looking for, she grinned and picked up her pace. 

            A little careless affection of her own probably wouldn’t be remiss. 

-

***

-

**Switzerland – In Transit**

            Odin stopped when his phone started to ring, then narrowed his eyes at her.  Marlé, for her part, just tried to look pleased with herself.  If he wanted to think she’d grabbed it and turned the ringer back on when he wasn’t paying attention, all the better; it was so much more fun to do it remotely.  He’d figure it out before long anyway, so she figured she’d get a kick out of tricking him while she had the chance.  After a moment’s glare, he just rolled his eyes and answered it.  “Hello?” 

            She couldn’t help it – when he smiled like that, her interest was peaked, and her attention was solely on him.  “Good.”  He tilted his head as he listened.  “A little.”  A pause.  “Why?”  He thought for a moment before, “I need to make it to Macedonia before tomorrow night.  If it’s en route, it shouldn’t be a problem.”  Another pause where he seemed to think seriously, then, “The 2337 Continental.” 

            Her jaw literally dropped.  That was the train they were on!  Odin didn’t even give her _mother_ their shuttle number, _she_ was the only one he let know, and that was only because she was generally sitting next to him.  With how paranoid her brother was, that amount of trust was _huge_. 

            This was big. 

            “Who was that?” she demanded as soon as he’d hung up. 

            He gave her a weird look, but he answered.  “Lucrezia.” 

            A few things clicked together.  A few others didn’t, even though they really obviously should.  She stared at him, trying to decide how much of this was him being stubborn and how much was just him being _Odin_.  He stared right back, looking a little disturbed… and definitely defensive. 

            _Nope._   She wanted to scream, but as frustrating as he could be, that would only make him _more_ confused.  He was just…  Just _Odin_. 

            She glowered at him, annoyed that he didn’t even _get_ what he was doing. 

            Finally, “What?” 

            “You _suck_.” 

            “…What?” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Milliardo,” Relena murmured pleasantly, reaching out to pull him into an embrace.  “It’s good to see you again, brother.”  He returned the hug before she gently pulled away and gripped both his hands in hers with a smile.  “It’s been too long.”  Breaking away completely, she gestured for him to follow her.  “Come; I have a guest in my office, and it would be rude to keep him waiting.” 

            “Of course.” 

            He had had a speech – a lecture, all planned to the T before he had arrived.  It had been carefully balanced to express how he was grateful for her help, but disappointed with her secrecy.  He knew he had been busy lately, but she had stopped even giving him personal reports; and in the instances where her projects were strictly funded by RLTT, she didn’t tell him of her progress at all.  The militia, the hydroponics facilities, and now the entirety of the heat amplifier industry… she hadn’t even told him she had left Brussels permanently.  The notion of how much _else_ she might be up to was… daunting.  He needed to nip that in the bud – he couldn’t afford to pull her out of trouble once she got in over her head.  She had an uncanny ability for finding danger… even _with_ Miller as her watchdog.  Now, for better or worse, he _needed_ her for relations with the Chinese, and any more mistakes on anyone’s part could vary well have dire consequences.  He had backed each of his points thoroughly, and rehearsed the phrasing in his head for over an hour. 

            When he had arrived, however… 

            Jake had met him by the car and walked him through the house security while Relena wrapped up a conference call, and he hadn’t been able to help but be impressed.  The men accompanying him had been politely relegated to the guardhouse with the quiet explanation that Miller would rather nonresidents didn’t know the house layout.  The tour had managed to extend beyond the security precautions to the courtyard and chicken coup before Relena had found them. 

            He almost hadn’t recognized her. 

            All his intended words had simply died in his throat as he met the eyes of a woman he could have sworn was his mother.  Instead of crafting his balance between censure and praise, he couldn’t stop his whirling focus from desperately debating why it was that she was practically their mother’s clone and he their father’s, instead of some mix.  The only clear differences he could discern were that of hair length and the knowledge that Katrina would never have willingly worn such sensible shoes as Relena’s flats – it had always been either delicately spun high heels or nothing. 

            “Are you hungry?” Relena asked, flowing grey skirt swirling gently around her calves as they entered the kitchen.  “We just finished lunch, but I could have something made for you.” 

            “No, thank-you,” he murmured, looking around the very… royally purple room.  There was a blonde woman wearing an apron doing dishes at the sinks, singing under her breath in a duet with the radio next to her.  A small child bounced idly in some sort of noisy chair contraption on the floor next to her, banging colorful toys together. 

            “Through here, then,” his sister announced, leading him into what appeared to be a _pantry_ of all places… and a staircase. 

            Jake caught his look and grinned.  “Rather clandestine, isn’t it?” 

            “I think the architect had a rather curious sense of humor,” Relena noted, “but I won’t deny how much personality it gives the house.”  She let out an ironically amused noise.  “With a direct route like this, I certainly can’t be waylaid by confused attackers while I’m off for a midnight snack.” 

            Milliardo closed his eyes as her words burned in his chest like a brand.  Of course, _his_ enemies had hurt her that night because he had been too trusting a fool with his security… enemies who had chosen that night because she was supposed to have been out of country at the time. 

            _Perhaps it **is** wise for us to live separately…  _

            He glanced back at his friend and found the colonel watching him speculatively.  The other man raised both brows in a too calm question when Milliardo met his gaze. 

            He had no idea what it was. 

            “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sebastian,” Relena called out happily as she opened the door at the top of the three flights of stairs.  “I’m afraid it couldn’t be helped.”  Moving to the opposite end of the dark-paneled room, she palmed a keypad and opened a door into bright sunshine.  As she led them into her atrium turned lounge, he didn’t try to hide the delight that stole across his face.  It was as though they had stepped outside, and he could see the picturesque grounds and town laid out around them, the blue skies above…  except that unlike outside, it was warm.  It took his breath away. 

            He loved it and felt his heart tear into smaller pieces at the same time. 

            An elegant hostess, Relena led them over to a set of couches facing each other with a coffee table between them.  A delicately designed tea service rested on a tray.  “Please, sit.”  She did so herself as she gestured for them both to take a seat across from her, and leaned forward to pour.  “I’m sure the two of you have met, but for the sake of formality, Sebastian, I would like to introduce my brother, Milliardo Peacecraft.”  Handing him a cup of what smelled like jasmine tea, she continued with, “Milliardo, this is Sebastian Dontelaine.  We were discussing what resources he might be able to reallocate for defense or reconstruction, should the violence continue to escalate.” 

            He nodded, unable to bring himself to respond verbally.  He was focused on trying to keep his hands from visibly shaking as he gazed at the china cup in his hand. 

            He hadn’t been aware that his mother’s tea set had survived the sacking of the palace. 

            Maintaining appearances, he brought it to his lips and took a sip to collect himself as he refused to allow his attention to fall back to the coffee table, instead busying himself with trying to determine the weave and fabric of Relena’s white blouse… and listened. 

-

***

-

**Berlin, Germany – Downtown**

            William Mehile blew into his coffee, cold hands wrapped around the cup.  It was his day off, and it had been a good morning so far.  His kids were keeping a phone now, and he had gotten to talk to Nolan before he headed to school, however briefly.  Melissa seemed happier than ever… 

            He grinned.  His son-in-law made a good husband, he gathered.  Not that he’d ever doubted – his little girl had always had good taste. 

            He worked hard to keep his bills as low as he could, which meant the only electronics he kept besides the phone were his tablet, coffee pot, and the heater that came with his little one room cubbyhole.  He hadn’t felt like reading after this morning’s call, so he had thought he’d wander down to the big screens for public use downtown.  He’d catch up on the latest news… which was a lot of propaganda, but the freedom of press hadn’t been too deeply subdued either.  From what he knew through his connections, the news was still more accurate than it had been during the war.  He point blank hadn’t let his kids watch the crap, back then. 

            He had been there for maybe twenty minutes when they finally stopped harping about the danger posed by increasing gundam attacks and why it was so important to know your evacuation schedule, to focus on the chunk of L1 that had gone incommunicado.  The claim was that it was due to old equipment and technological difficulties, and that teams were being sent up today to help put things back to rights. 

            William snorted, and he could hear from the crowd around him that he wasn’t the only one thought that was a sack of shit.  L1 was arguably the most technologically advanced country in existence, and sixteen clusters was… just huge.  They varied in size, but the average urban colony was as big as a small city, though far more sparsely populated.  Agricultural colonies were generally larger, as the hydroponics systems became far more complex.  These days, the hybridized types were the most common, at least in the nicer areas, and a few of those had been included in the now silent ninety-six colonies.  That was about a quarter of L1 altogether, and in terms of area lost, at least as big as Austria. 

            The biggest worry, probably, was that they had decided to recede from the planet’s problems through isolation.  It would hardly be a new tactic for the colonies… for all that, considering the fate of Dekim Barton’s attempted secession, it was unlikely they thought they could get away with it.  Even though he had decided to leave out the details after Mariemaia’s disappearance, Marquise had squashed Barton’s rebellion very publicly and, to the unseasoned eye, very thoroughly.  That kind of thing discouraged repeat offenders.  Dekim had gathered himself a nice little military force to pull it off, and the public had been told that.  The fact, however, was that the dissolution of the group hadn’t really had a chance to enter the battlefield; Treize had neatly pulled the entire organization apart at the seams before the Regime troops arrived.  Only the Barton die-hards and the slow had still been there, and the fighting had been more token than anything. 

            If L1 was seceding, then they probably thought themselves plenty prepared.  Will presumed that his Excellency either knew the truth or was at the core of it.  However, he also point blank knew that he was very low on the totem pole; if he needed to know, he would be told, and not before.  As it was, he couldn’t say whatever was happening in space now had much to do with his life. 

            He shrugged deeper into his scarf and raised his mug for another sip, idly debating-  

            Heat.  Darkness and a sudden feeling of being pushed, of weightlessness…  Then the solid pressure of slamming into the ground. 

            He blinked in confusion, trying to clear his vision, but it stayed blurred, and the pavement was numbingly cool against his cheek.  Why was- 

            His heart slammed as reality caught up with him and he shoved himself up off the ground, though he only made it partway to his knees before his back gave and he went back down.  He managed to catch himself on his hands, at least.  His chest heaved air in, and out… and he tried to just focus on his hands, trying to see the wrinkles of his knuckles.  _In, and out…_   There was something blue between his hands… he squinted hard… and closed his eyes as he realized what it was and an itching burn began to crawl across his back.  He knew, intellectually, that he was in shock, but… He didn’t care when the tears fogged his eyes back up. 

            Melinda had made that mug for him before Melissa was born. 

            He gasped out a sob as fire seared through his back and his arms shook until he fell down to his elbows.  His hands were red with blood… the pavement glittered like a thousand diamonds.  _Glass…_   There was glass everywhere, falling off his hat and shoulders like crystal snow… 

            Dimly, he realized people were running all around him… and everything was too quiet.  He could hear… probably screaming… he could _see_ someone screaming…  but… it was like it was from a block away, not next to him.  He toppled to one side as his shoulder shuddered and gave out, then froze, staring up. 

            Fire. 

            The sky was on _fire_. 

            He gasped for more air, realizing he’d stopped for a bit there.  _In, out.  In…  Oh God._   The sky _couldn’t_ be on fire…  _Look around…_   He let his head drop to the ground.  God, it was so _hot_ … the cold ground against his face was the kiss of an angel, even as the bite of the glass shards began to burn his cheek.  Fighting to keep his eyes open, he tried to look around… 

            _Oh God._  

            He wasn’t the only one on the ground. 

            He didn’t think they were moving. 

            …It was getting harder to breathe… 

            _Panic is **not** going to help!  _

            Focusing hard on the body nearest him, he willed it with all his being to move.  _Move.  Breathe…  In…  Out.  In…_  

            It felt like an eternity.  Hours, at least. 

            Someone shook his shoulder hard, and he felt his scream more than he heard it.  His eyes flew open…  Someone was in his face, yelling at him, gesturing… 

            _What the hell?_  

            He couldn’t help but scream again as the man hefted him and literally threw him over his shoulders and started running.  _God…_   That made the edges of everything fade black…  Everything else was grey and… fire. 

            _The sky!_   Grey…  _Oh._   The building had exploded, not the sky.  That… that was good… 

            His back was still burning, but he started to shiver, hard, and it was just too damn hard to keep his eyes open… 

            _God…  What…?_  

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Here,” Relena muttered, sliding a folder across the coffee table.  “I was going to have a courier run this over to you today, but this works out better.  If you can read through and sign, we can save everyone some trouble.” 

            He seemed to hesitate a moment, but he pulled it to him and began to rifle through its contents without comment.  That was something of a relief… yet also not.  He had been considerate enough to follow her lead while they had had an audience, but now that Mu was leading Olivia’s brother back to his car, she doubted he was going to be so pleasant. 

            She was sick and tired of playing meek and defensive with him, though.  He had come to _her_.  If he wanted to play games, he would realize she had the homeland advantage. 

            “Are you doing alright?” she asked after a moment.  He looked perfectly normal, but she had learned some time ago how much some men could hide with formal posture, especially those so still and measured, deliberate, as Milliardo. 

            He gave her one of the smiles he seemed to save just for her.  “I’m fine, Relena.  I apologize for the spectacle the other day, but fortunately my pride took all the injury.”  Pausing, he seemed to debate with himself for a moment before setting her folder aside and crossing his legs.  “Friday morning was actually one of the things I was hoping to discuss with you.” 

            Relena raised her brows delicately and leaned back as though at lease, crossing her own legs smoothly.   “As I have already explained, the amplifier contract was officially broken when you impugned Chinese territorial borders by means of MS without warning, let alone consent.”  Pursing her lips gently, she added, “I have also been informed that by the wording of your treaty with them, the exception your forces claimed to be following could only hold in the instance of violent pursuit.  Instead, you instigated an attack on foreign ground, and now they want to boycott all _friendly_ interests from us in that region as well.” 

            “It’s a pretty threat, Relena, but they cannot afford such action.” 

            She let a degree of irritation show in her eyes.  “Respectfully, big brother, we’re talking about _China_ , who has happily starved over half of her population for poor idealism on numerous occasions.  Additionally, the pieces of Africa they claimed from you are nothing but claimed territories; _recently_ claimed, at that.  If there is benefit to them, I don’t doubt that they will negotiate, but frankly,” she leaned forward as far as she could, though she kept her muscles casually relaxed, “if you continue to piss them off, they will do it just to spite.  They have little they truly _value_ to lose, and you have already seen how fast the press will take an opportunity to smear you.” 

            He didn’t respond to that.  After a moment, Relena relaxed back into the couch and waited for him to break his gaze.  When it became clear that he had no intention of doing so, she gave him a subtly irritated look, uncrossed her legs, and went back to her paperwork.  That only lasted a moment, however, as she had caught up on her more extraneous red tape last night, and everything she needed for the afternoon was packed in her case, as she was scheduled to head to Croatia in an hour.  Lips quirking in spite of herself, she instead picked up the folder she had handed Milliardo and began displaying it for him according to topic and project.  When she looked back up at him and found his eyes still on her, she lost her patience and threw out a challenging smile as she held out one of her better fountain pens. 

            “I thank you for the visit, Milliardo, but I have work to do.”  Pushing down another wave of irritation when he didn’t take it, she set the pen down on his papers pointedly and stood.  “Excuse me.”  She moved briskly for the bathroom door, entered smoothly, shut it gently, and fought the urge to scream.  It would be therapeutic, but highly detrimental when she was still within his hearing.  Looking up, an irritated thanks on her tongue for Mai’s having waited and _not_ brought a massive, dripping wet dog through her office in the middle of _that_ , she froze and blinked. 

            There wasn’t anyone else, canine or otherwise, in the bathroom. 

            Frowning, she strode over to the door that led to Dorothy’s suite, but no….  the manual deadbolt on this side was still thrown, and Mai didn’t have a key.  Moving back to the center of the room, she realized there weren’t any puddles either… though the trap door for the spiral staircase down into her closet was sitting open.  Peering down, she reconsidered the rather narrow width of the thing… and lack of any dampness. 

            Smiling brightly to herself, she shut the hatch and set her hands on her hips, surveying her altogether spotless bathroom.  _Okay…  Mai magicked the dog out._   It was an amusing enough idea that she almost didn’t want to know the truth.  Looking over towards the vanity, she tossed her hair a little and smiled at her reflection. 

            _I… really needed that little laugh,_ she decided. 

            Taking a fortifying breath, she walked back into her office.  Milliardo had stood and was facing the door, eyes apologetic as he grimaced.  She brushed past him to her computer – and rather conveniently, it chimed out a notice for her as she did so. 

            “Relena…” 

            “Yes, Milliardo?”  She didn’t turn, focusing instead on opening a browser on the news, more out of habit than anything else. 

            “…I’m going to space, this evening.” 

            She hummed out a thoughtful noise.  “I thought you might, soon.”  Stopping what she was doing, she turned and rested her weight on the edge of her desk.  “I hope you have an outline for me on the immediate lines of authority, should you be unavailable.” 

            “Yes.”  He gave her a tired smile.  “I had been planning to bring it up over lunch, but I’ve assigned you the post of Foreign Affairs Minister.” 

            She blinked in surprise before giving into a delighted smile, wondering if maybe now things would begin to change.  “Thank-you.” 

            His returning smile was more of a grimace.  “The Chinese were very clear that you were the only acceptable option,” he explained wryly. 

            Her gratitude wilted and died mere instants after its birth.  “I see.” 

            His mouth set in a firm line.  “Relena, you need to realize how vital this position is.  I know that you-” 

            “Learned the intricacies of handling foreign affairs at my father’s knee?” she cut off sharply.  Pushing away from the desk and advancing on him, she acidly corrected, “Oh, I’m sorry, at Vice Foreign Minister Darlian’s knee.  He couldn’t have possibly been a workaholic who could only afford to spend quality time with his foster child if she was helping draft contracts and treaties.” 

            “Relena-” 

            “And of course there isn’t any reason I might recognize the dangers of such a post, seeing as I was _with_ him when he was _assassinated_!”  She glowered at him, knowing she ought to control her temper, but just beyond caring.  It felt _good_ to see him standing there stunned. 

            The acoustics in her antechamber chirped; they were about to have company. 

            Taking a deep breath, Relena collected and centered herself.  Fixing him with a steady gaze, she quietly said, “Some days, Milliardo, you have the sheer nerve of ten men and the sensitivity of a raging _bull_.” 

            She _wasn’t_ going to apologize. 

            Jake threw the door open, and both siblings turned to find his expression was grim.  Her anger skyrocketed into alarm.  “What’s happened?” she demanded. 

            “Someone bombed the Regime Administration buildings in Berlin.” 

-

***

-

**Verona, Italy**

            _“Hey, sweetie.”_   Her mother sounded distracted.  _“What’s up?”_  

            “Odin ditched me again.”  She had no qualms about outright wailing pitifully at her mother if it helped, right now.  She was feeling downright rejected, and the fact that that wasn’t how Odin meant it wasn’t making her feel any better.  “I don’t get why I’m not allowed to meet his friends.” 

            Leia sighed.  _“They’re **really** good at making trouble, honey, and I don’t want to risk you getting mixed up with you brother’s… more questionable hobbies, if we can help it.”_  

            Marlé rolled her eyes.  “I get that, but he’s being _social_ with them too, you know.” 

            _“Did he say that?”_ her mother asked dryly. 

            She made an irritated noise.  “I _know_ him, Mom.  And he _trusts_ her!” 

            _“Her?”_

            _He **talks** to her!_   That wouldn’t sound right, though.  “He’s either talking _to_ her, or about her,” she went on in a rush, feeling pent up about it all.  “He gets her stuff just because he can.”  He had insisted on going to two separate colonies plus a resource satellite to put together the gundam care package he had sent down, and it turned out she hadn’t _actually_ asked for it.  “When she calls, he just drops everything.” 

            For Odin to smile like that whenever she came up…  for him to stay a few days longer with her to make her feel better about him messing up his leg again?  It meant that he was thinking about her _all the time_ , including her like he really only did Marie, and… 

            And Odin only _included_ , Marie.  He _went out of his way_ for this woman. 

            And Marie didn’t even know who she _was_. 

            The rest of it didn’t really bother her, she’d decided while sitting there refusing to talk to him on the train.  It was the fact that she’d _missed_ it, even if Odin hadn’t figured out what he was doing yet.  It was the fact that she was _still_ missing it, because apparently she was the _only one_ who’d realized how important it was.  Odin just…  didn’t _do_ things like anyone else, so…  that meant this really meant something. 

            It was irritating that she had to keep separate from half of the stuff Odin did now, but she got why he and her mom were doing it, even if she thought it was stupid.  She went along with it.  This though…  she needed to _meet_ Lucrezia. 

            Her mother sighed.  _“Context is everything, Marlé.”_  

            “It’s not just time-dependency,” Marlé argued, because that had been what she thought at first too.  “I checked.”  And Odin didn’t procrastinate, but he wasn’t one of those obsessive go-getter types either; he took care of stuff when it was convenient.  The fact that he’d made her sprint with him to a _toy store_ because he’d forgotten what time they closed was _highly_ relevant to that argument.  Not even getting into the fact that they hadn’t _actually_ had _any_ time constraint or expectation about all that. 

            Her mother sighed again.  _“I’ll talk to him about it-”_  

            “Thank-you!” 

            _“- **if** he brings it up.”  _

            …Yeah, that wasn’t happening. 

            “But-” 

            **_“Dr. Keissler!”_** someone called in the background. 

            _“I have to go,”_ her mother muttered quickly.  _“Call me later tonight, okay?”_  

            _Click._

            Marlé glowered at the phone as it registered the disconnection.  Her mother worked in emergency medicine, and it was actually pretty normal for her to not be able to finish a conversation with her if she was on shift.  It was ‘emergency’ medicine for a reason, after all.  That didn’t make it any less irritating when she hadn’t gotten her point across, though.  Sighing and tucking it into her pocket, she looked around, debating. 

            …Odin would _so_ catch her if she tried to sneak up and spy on his little meeting. 

            Growling, she yanked her phone back out and plopped down on the curb, starting a half serious text to Amos. 

            _‘any idea how to make a voice changer?’_  

            She really doubted she could pull it off, but trying to figure it out would make her feel better. 

-

***

-

**Pyrohy, Ukraine**

            It was a beautiful manor…  The house itself was regal, and the grounds picturesque, massive lawns with a large pond.  The gate was of an older style, meticulously crafted wrought iron, and everything looked well taken care of.  There were a few pieces of playground equipment, and a large ball or two, littered across the grounds…  at least one child lived there. 

            Cory shifted his weight, and finally spoke.  “Are we going to go in?” 

            Quatre sighed.  “No.”  He would love to, really, but there would hardly be a point.  Certainly, he could meet his niece or nephew, and perhaps even his brother-in-law, but…  He had no evidence of his identity, as he had never met them… and the silvery artemisia brush surrounding the gates spoke volumes.  Even from this far back, he could see the bright red and yellow blooms along this side of the greenhouse, and he knew, with the fairly large bushes closer to him, that if he had a pair of binoculars, he would confirm that they were zinnias. 

            His sisters had a number of habits and codes they all used, and one of their favorites had always been flower language. 

            Wormwood for absence…  the silvery white artemisia species for long-term intentions. 

            The yellow-flame zinnias confirmed the same, in a sort of ‘I’m thinking of you, think of me’ way. 

            She wasn’t here, and from the look of the riotous population in the window boxes and the size of the artemisia bushes, she hadn’t been for some time.  He couldn’t remember enough to know if any of the other plant species he could spy from the gate added more meanings, gave any more detail… but they all kept flowers corresponding to mood or ideals as well, so he could easily get lost in the muddle of that even if he _was_ knowledgeable enough.  They had only insisted he learn the dozen or so they signaled danger or status with. 

            “Let’s go,” he muttered, turning back towards the path.  It was best to leave before the residents decided to make something of the stranger peering through the gate. 

-

***

-

**Berlin, Germany – Charité Hospital**

            _“Hoi.”_  

            “Mm?  Oh…”  Brenda smiled brightly at the man who had just come up to the counter.  She had had a constant line for hours earlier, but now, while it was still noisy, everyone was leaving her area of the hospital alone.  After all, she was only administration.  She still had an hour before she was off shift, though, however exhausting and awful today had been…  and this guy didn’t look upset, which was a nice change of pace. 

            The fact that he very much qualified as eye candy was nice too.  Of a good height, with a decently filled out chest under a tight sweater, he looked lean but well built, with a sweet face and a thick, dark blonde ponytail falling over one shoulder and trailing over her countertop.  He had the kind of deep blue eyes a girl could drown in and the smile of a charmer. 

            Leaning forward, willing to flirt a _little_ on the job, she returned the greeting.  “Hi.” 

            Amusement glimmered in his eyes as he shifted his weight so he was resting on one arm, casually leaning half-sideways on the counter.  “I don’t suppose you could tell me if William Mehile is ready for release yet?” 

            Mm… his accent, and the greeting too, for that matter, were definitely Dutch.  “Just a minute,” she told him, turning to the computer.  Seeing the patient’s date of birth flash up as she confirmed what file she wanted, she asked, “Is he your father?”  It was an easy way to break the ice. 

            That charming smile was a touch apologetic as he held up his left hand, exposing a simple steel band.  “In-law.” 

            _Damn._   Smiling apologetically herself, she focused on her screen.  “It says he can leave now, yes.”  Checking the list of approved names, she asked, “Are you Kasey?”  At his easy nod, she asked, “Can I see your ID really quick?” 

            “Not a problem.”  Pulling out his wallet, he asked, “Is the doc going to need to talk to me?  The woman who called said Will was still pretty out of it.” 

            “You’re going to need to meet with Dr. Lera, yes.  Mr. Mehile is stable, but has been slipping in and out of consciousness since coming in, so he needs someone to look after his treatment for at least a few days.  Um…”  She gestured ruefully towards the very full waiting room.  “I’ll call Dr. Lera and let him know you’re here.  We’ll get to you as soon as we can.” 

            Kasey nodded agreeably, turning to look over the crowd of anxious people.  “That’s fine… from what I’ve heard so far, Will was pretty lucky.”  He sighed and shifted his weight fully back onto his feet.  “At least, luckier than a lot of other people.”  Waving a hand at her as he moved away, he added, “Thanks for the sweet attitude, honey, I’m sure you’re helping all sorts of folk with just that smile.  I’ll wait my turn.” 

            Brenda blinked, then smiled genuinely at the appreciation.  “Your wife is lucky!” she called after him.  “God bless!” 

            His answering chuckle sounded tired.  “God bless.” 

-

***

-

**Austria – In Transit**

            It takes nearly half an hour, but he’s relieved it wasn’t any longer before she sighs and leans into the man, going so far as to drop her head on his shoulder as she stares out the window into nothing.  He responds with his predicable, precise care, resting one hand over hers where it’s fallen on his lap, the other gently but firmly around her waist, exactly at the right height to be comfortable but innocent.  He tilts the side of his head to the top of hers and hums out a soothing noise, eyes shut.  They stay like that for nearly twenty minutes. 

            Lieutenant Lincoln Sobrie pretends to not think much of it.  Technically speaking, it’s normal behavior for them, and he knows for a fact that this morning was stressful on everyone.  They had time before arriving at Relena’s next engagement, and in the end of the day, the careful dance between the princess and her colonel was their business.  If he were entirely honest, he _wouldn’t_ have thought anything of it if two months ago, when they had had the exact same gestures and patterns.  He’d seen the two of them _sleep_ settled against each other like this on at least two occasions. 

            But he hadn’t needed Mai to point out to him how very _controlled_ their commanding officer was becoming in Relena’s presence; he knew the man well enough by this point to have noticed it himself.  The carefree motions and habits were the same, he wasn’t doing anything differently with the princess at all, down to the minutia…  but…  His movements never appeared to _actually_ be careless, anymore. 

            He had a few theories.  He wasn’t about to broach them with _anyone_ , however, because as far as he was concerned?  Jake was omniscient of all words and actions within a hundred yard radius, and he didn’t like the feeling of looking over his shoulder for an ambush he know he wasn’t talented enough to notice before it was sprung.  Mai could play daredevil with that one all she wanted; he enjoyed a sense of security when he laid down to sleep at night. 

            He glanced back towards them, and found that while the colonel’s eyes were shut, Relena was watching him.  He met her clear blue eyes with a concerned sort of smile and tilt of the head, asking if she was okay.  She stared at him coolly for a moment before shifting her gaze down to Jake’s hand over hers.  Her focus stayed there for a long moment before she looked back to him, all without twitching any muscles in her face or body.  She wasn’t giving Jake any way to know that she was even conscious. 

            Sometimes, Lin wondered if the colonel realized just how well he had taught his charge.  Technically, he ought to, but she seemed to know him as well as he knew her. 

            The implication in her steady, sober gaze made him nod ever so slightly in answer.  _Yes, I see it._   It was good, on some level, to know that she hadn’t missed Jake’s increasing precision.  It was upsetting, however, to realize that if she knew… 

            If she knew, then she was doing the exact same thing, maintaining the exact same comfort level artificially without a sign, even though she recognized the loss. 

            And Lin _hadn’t_ noticed _her_ doing it. 

            He couldn’t decide if his expectations and assumptions about the colonel had blinded him to that, or if she really superseded Miller’s skill on that front – at least in this particular instance. 

            Her eyes shone darker as she looked down and away instead of out the window as she had been before.  Pursing her lips, she squeezed her eyes shut before Jake shifted and opened his own.  Seeming to realize her shift in mood, he twisted his head to press his lips to the top of her head.  Lin made sure he was looking worriedly out the window when he felt dark blue eyes focus on him. 

            There was a whole _ball_ of subtle insinuation there he had no intention of touching.  For now, he could be happy that he didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.  If that changed, he’d figure it out later. 

-

***

-

**Italy – In Transit**

            “Here.” 

            Marlé held out one hand expectantly without looking towards him, the other still busily tapping out a message on her phone.  Irritation sparked in his chest, and he felt slighted in spite of the sheer inanity of the situation.  He followed that she was upset with him, but he couldn’t _do_ anything to fix it if he didn’t know what the problem _was_.  She was…  He narrowed his eyes. 

            She was acting like _Dorothy_. 

            _Not_ a pleasant progression. 

 

-

_“An olive branch, then.”_

_Odin frowned and inspected the object with disbelieving curiosity.  “Olive?”  He brought it closer to his face, but the only scents he could pick up were of sugar and lemon._

_Lucrezia laughed, apparently delighted.  “Forgive the metaphor, Odin.  Consider it a peace offering.”_

_He tilted his head and considered it again.  The concept struck him as a little simplistic, but if it worked the way Lucrezia was suggesting, it was practically a new perspective on negotiating altogether… and it made a disconcerting amount of sense on a visceral level.  It might even start to explain why he had never been exactly… good… with negotiations._

_“Alright.”  He met her eyes and smiled.  “Thank-you.”_

-

 

            He dropped it very precisely into her hand, and felt a proud smirk tug at his lips as she automatically adjusted her fingers around it to firmly hold but not crush when she had been expecting to catch something far denser.  Her mind was only a moment behind her body, and she spun her head around to focus on her hand in surprise.  She seemed just as confused as he had been when Lucrezia had done the same to him. 

            It was oddly gratifying. 

            “What is it?” she asked, staring at it in seeming confusion. 

            He gave her an amused look.  That much should have been obvious – the air smelled of sweet lemon for a good three-foot radius.  The tiny cake _had_ come with a label, however.  “A Salivation Salutation.” 

            The look she gave him was entirely incredulous… then exasperated as she dropped her phone in her lap and shot him a happy smile as she brought the treat to her mouth.  Her eyes actually lit up as she chewed her first bite.  “Oh, wow.”  She took more time than she usually did, but seemed extraordinarily happy to do so, and she focused back on him after she’d swallowed.  “Okay… it deserves the dumb name.” 

            “Does it?” he asked curiously.  He’d readily agree it was good, probably one of the most enjoyable foods he had ever had, but he didn’t have much of a frame of reference. 

            Marlé, knowing him as she did, slid into her normal way of conversation.  “This is probably the best cupcake I’ve ever had, Odin.”  Taking a delicate nibble and making happy noises in the back of her throat, she asked, “Did you get cake when you were little?”  A moment later, she froze and blinked over at him owlishly.  “You already had one, right?  We’re not sharing?” 

            He almost laughed at her.  Shaking his head, he waved a hand for her to go on as he settled back into his chair.  “I think Odin preferred ice cream.  That was probably more about convenience than anything, though; most places that sell food of any kind carry ice cream.” 

            “You never really had an oven to bake stuff in either, huh?” 

            He frowned,  “No, more than half of the places I remember had kitchens.”  His father had usually made food on the stove, or kept things in the fridge.  “Odin just… I don’t remember him ever using the oven.”  He probably just hadn’t been inclined. 

            She frowned at him.  “Not even pizza?” 

            He gave her a look.  “You _buy_ pizza.” 

            She copied his expression right back at him.  “Or you _make_ it, in the oven.” 

            Obviously, but it still seemed rather pointless when it was easier and cheap to just order it.  “Why?” 

            “Because it tastes good.”  She pretended not to notice his stare as she took more tiny, delicate nibbles of her cupcake. 

            He watched her for another ten seconds before deciding to just let it drop and move on.  “I had cake a few times as a child,” he admitted.  Once had been while he happened to be at a park at the same time another kid had been having a birthday party, and the boy’s mother had insisted he have a piece.  Odin had bought him a cupcake at random some time after that, but neither instance had been like this.  “It was always chocolate, though.” 

            “Mm, chocolate’s pretty universal for sweets,” Marlé noticed absently.  “What got you to buy this, then?” 

            “I didn’t.”  Shrugging to himself, he reached out and broke a piece off the top and popped it in his mouth.  “Lucrezia brought them.” 

            She gave him a dirty look before focusing back on the treat in her hands.  “That was nice of her,” the girl noted in a flat voice. 

            Odin frowned, leaning back as he watched her.  Marlé… _didn’t_ use a monotone.  Ever.  Which meant… well, it meant something frustrating.  However, before he could decide if her example of getting upset at him when he closed emotions out of his expression meant he could turn the same tactic on her, she spoke again.  “Did she say why?” 

 

-

_“It’s not quite on the same level of effort as a pink pony, but I thought you might appreciate the thought.”_

_He smiled at that before considering the inconsistencies.  “I didn’t ask for it.”_

_Lucrezia set her face in one hand and laughed softly at him.  “I wasn’t exactly in want of a pony, but I still appreciated the sentiment.  Odin…”  She pursed her lips and sat up straighter.  “I honestly haven’t asked for anything beyond your expertise – you’ve delivered excessive quality whenever a single insinuation is made.  I haven’t properly asked… and therefore I haven’t properly returned the sentiment.”  Reaching forward, she nudged the bakery box closer to him with one finger.  “So when I saw something I thought you might like, I decided the gesture was overdue.”  Sitting back again, she smiled.  “I remembered you drinking lemonade in Sanc, so I assumed the flavor was a decently safe bet.”_

_-_

            “It wasn’t out of her way, and she wanted to.” 

            Marlé looked up at him, her gaze searching.  “Have you thought about this, Odin?  Really honestly, thoroughly, _thought_ about it yet?” 

 

-

_Her eyes, he realized at last, were what bothered him.  They were wrong, and he knew it was because her natural color was unusual enough to attract attention, but despite knowing, be couldn’t entirely suppress the discontent at the flat brown they currently appeared to be.  It… wasn’t **her** , which was entirely the point, but…  _

_She chuckled softly and his attention shifted to her hand as she brush a piece of hair away from her face.  “You’re staring, you know.”_

_“Sorry,” he returned automatically, shifting his eyes instead down to his coffee.  He was fixating on irrelevant details._

_“Mm… are you actually?”  Her tone was entirely curious._

_“Somewhat.”_

_“Hm.”  She leaned forward on the table and dropped her face in her upturned hand, far enough that her face was literally only inches from his own and he reflexively met her gaze as she seemed to search his own eyes for something.  Considering how long he’d been doing just the same without objection, he allowed it.  Emotions swirled through his chest, but he set them aside while she examined him, wondering what it was she was looking for… while at the same time he fought his pulse down from the racing thrill it wanted to start.  He focused instead on reading her expression for a reaction, and found himself fixated on her lips as they curved back into her easy smile.  A breeze caught her loose hair, and he fought down a shudder as a stray lock brushed against his hand._

_Lucrezia’s eyes were bright with amusement to match her smile as she breathed out another husky laugh and shook her head ever so slightly.  “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”_

_He lost control of his pulse and his heart pounded as a faint hint of something floral filtered through his senses.  His mouth was too dry.  In the back of his mind, he recalled a Russian woman’s higher-pitched laughter as the redhead settled more firmly in his lap and declared, ‘Oh, and you don’t even know it, that just makes it better.’_

_But this wasn’t the same as that had been._

_Guided entirely by his heart, he moved forward as well so their noses nearly touched.  Staring into her eyes again pointedly, he muttered, “I have a few.”_

_-_

            “A little,” he admitted to Marlé. 

 

-

_She relaxed her weight further and smiled more generously.  “Oh?”_

_He licked his lips, head buzzing with sensations he had yet to organize.  “I’m still working out the details.”_

_She laughed softly in the back of her throat as she leaned back into her chair.  “Let me know when you manage to sort them, mm?”_

_-_

            Marlé sighed and curled up in her chair, cupcake on her knees.  “Whatever, then.” 

            “What?” he asked incredulously.  She was upset again.  She’d been happy and helpful all of three seconds ago. 

            She glowered at her knees, entirely sullen.  “Just whatever, Odin.” 

            _... **What**?  _

-

***

-

**Near Osnabrück, Germany – In Transit**

            When the world faded back into view, all he could make out at first was blurry, red, and soft.  He blinked, reached out an uncooperative hand to try and touch it, groaned at how much trying to move hurt… and realized it was his blanket.  Actually, it was his pillow, and his bed. 

            He got a sudden sense of vertigo as the bed lurched and two bands of something felt tight around his waist and legs. 

            This was probably not his apartment. 

            “Will, you alive back there?” 

            William groaned again, trying to figure out what the hell hurt most.  He recognized the voice, though, even if nothing else made sense.  “What happened?” 

            “You got blown up,” Duo noted dryly.  “I hear that hurts like hell; what’s your vote?” 

            Will just groaned again and tried to bury himself in the mattress.  That wasn’t worth an answer.  “Where am I?”  There was a weird…. _vibration_ that was oddly familiar…  But that answer wasn’t coming to mind either. 

            Duo didn’t answer for a long moment, and his stomach twisted like he was on some sort of carnival ride before the boy began to tiredly explain.  “We’re on our way to Amsterdam.  I grabbed everything personal or useful out of your place before I picked you up – you’re going to be staying with us for a while.” 

            An alarm went off in his head at that idea, and everything… _spun_.  “My job-” 

            “Will, your job got blown up,” Duo cut off, voice tight. 

            He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop thinking about the way he felt like he was on a hell of a merry-go-round. 

            He _really_ didn’t want to throw up on his bed… wherever it was, it was still his bed… 

            Duo sighed loudly.  “It’s…  it’s a damn good thing it was your day off, buddy.”  He just sounded tired now, like he couldn’t stay upset.  “It was close enough as it was.  When the docs first called, they weren’t sure you were going to make it at all.”  There was a click, and then, very suddenly, Duo was squatting next to him, taking his wrist in a very medical way.  “I’ve got some meds to give you, but it needs to wait another half hour or so, until after we’ve crossed the border; it’s been long enough that the guys I met on the way here are probably off shift.”  Another hand cupped his forehead.  “You okay?” 

            “No,” William groused, still trying to fight his stomach back down.  “Where are we?” 

            “…On second thought, those meds might need to wait longer than thirty minutes.” 

            He groaned again, trying to curl around his stomach…  and groaned more as his back lit on fire. 

            “Shit…” 

            “Why?” he demanded. 

            “Because some people have a warped idea of who does what?” 

            _…What does that have to do with anything?_   “Why do I have to be awake right now?” he clarified. 

            “Because if I get ID’d, you’re going to need to be able to call in a few favors with a dead friend for me.” 

            “I thought no one was dead.” 

            The other man’s laugh sounded a little too hysterical for comfort.  “Oh God…  It’s _you_ that’s not dead, Will, I didn’t say anything about anybody else.” 

            “Who’s dead?” 

            “…You know, I’m not sure this was one of my better ideas.” 

            “Who’s _dead_?” 

            “Fuck, you’re not even going to remember this conversation, calm down, nobody died.” 

            He blinked his eyes open and squinted up at the man his daughter had married.  It… was dark, but he could see okay.  “Where _are_ we?” 

            Dark blue eyes met his for a long moment before he let out another sigh.  “We’re on our way to Amsterdam.  And God help me, but there should be a better term for this than ‘disorientation.’” 

            The fact that he was avoiding the question entirely was almost terrifying.  Duo hated lying – he tried to sidestep it entirely _all the time_.  “But where _are we_?” he demanded. 

            His eyes were panicked.  “This can’t be happening…” 

            “ _Where **is** this_?”  He grabbed at the hand by his face, wishing he had the energy to shake the damn boy.  Panic wasn’t going to help _anything_! 

            Duo’s mouth opened in a little oh of surprise, then suspicion.  “Are you talking about the _van_?” 

            Will frowned, trying to look around without moving his head.  “Van?” 

            Duo closed his eyes and covered them with the hand that Will wasn’t holding onto.  “We’re in Father Espen’s van.  I borrowed it.” 

            _Oh._   That… made sense.  He started to let go of the sleeve in his hand, when a different sense of urgency hit him.  “I’m going to puke.” 

            “…Of course you are…” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Late Afternoon**

            “Thank-you,” Relena murmured tiredly as she took the hand offered to help her out of the car.  She felt like a wrung out dish towel, just completely spent- 

            “You’re always welcome,” Mitchell returned cheerfully. 

            Relena gasped as she really _saw_ who was in front of her.  “David!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck and dropping her weight onto him. 

            He obliged by pulling her off her feet and into a bear hug, laughing happily.  “I missed you too, Princess.” 

            “Is it just you?” she asked, pulling away and looking around the courtyard for more familiar faces. 

            “Cassidy went home,” the colonel dismissed.  “This is genuine time off, not a break between flights.  Some true downtime was due in.” 

            She sighed.  “I certainly can’t argue with that.”  Fighting a smile, she reached out and plucked at one sleeve of his overly colorful shirt.  “Enjoying your time out of uniform?” 

            He grinned and tugged down on the ends of it to better show the printed picture.  “I’m _rockin’_ this tiger.” 

            Relena broke out giggling, pulling him into a more normal hug, feeling the tension drain out of her body.  “I missed you, Dave.” 

            Jake chuckled from behind her.  “I didn’t think you still had that shirt.” 

            “And that,” Mitchell whispered conspiratorially in her ear, “proves that he does not, in fact, know everything.”  Relena laughed more and buried her face in his shoulder. 

            “Your stage whisper needs work,” Jake noted dryly. 

            “Your ears need more wax in them,” David returned happily. 

            Jake chuckled again.  “I’d say you need less glitter on your shirt, but I think Lena’s handling that.” 

            “What?” the princess demanded, quickly pulling back and looking down at herself. 

            “That’s why it’s a _vacation_ shirt,” David argued easily, reaching out and pulling Relena back into his arms just as she registered that there _were_ , in fact, golden glints on her blouse. 

            “David!” she squealed in protest. 

            He just laughed, holding onto her tighter. 

            Lin had apparently also made his way out of the car, and cackled as she tried to wiggle free without actually trying that hard, because all the ways she knew how were far less than polite and had decent chances of causing bodily harm, even when done half-heartedly.  Feeling utterly childish – but really, he’d started it – she made a rather annoyed whining sound and fell limp against him, hoping he’d just give in if she did first. 

            “What’s this, now?” Mai asked, sounding just as amused as the rest, and Relena closed her eyes, trying not to break out in giggles again at the sheer absurdity of her position. 

            “A menace by the name of Mitchell,” Lin explained easily. 

            “Oh?” 

            “Terrifying,” Lin assured her. 

            “He came bearing glitter, no less,” Jake confirmed dryly. 

            “Ah,” Mai returned as though this had, indeed, explained everything.  “Are we waiting for reinforcements, then?” 

            Relena smiled into the damn stupid shirt, and mumbled, “My white knights are coming for me.” 

            “Mm, could be tricky,” he noted seriously. 

            “I don’t know, Marakesh,” Jake was debating.  “It’s a hostage situation, remember.” 

            “Didn’t you train her to give us an opening for that sort of thing, though?” Mai argued. 

            Relena sighed at the very _not_ subtle hints and shifted her weight to move after all, only to have David giggle naughtily and dance away from her before she could try something. 

            She grinned.  He _was_ Jake’s best friend, after all. 

            Shaking her head, she started towards the house.  “You’re here for a few days, right?” 

-

***

-

**Lisbon, Portugal**

            _Mm…_  It was refreshingly good to be back in Europe. 

            Adam shifted the strap on his bag, considering which way he wanted to go next.  Something about the abandoned shipyard appealed to him greatly, and for all that the weaponry in his sack was as comforting as usual – no less so because it was no longer a current necessary precaution – it wasn’t the best idea to continue carrying _all_ of it across borders.  Security was bound to go up with recent events, and he wasn’t so uncertain of his footing at the moment that he needed an entire duffle-full for a security blanket.  A sixth of what he had now would do fine…  perhaps even an eighth, depending. 

            He hummed to himself as he decided left felt right, and went with it. 

            Everything had been thoroughly _busy_ while he was in America, to the point that he was somewhat disappointed he hadn’t acted on the radioactive situation just a week earlier, and not missed it.  He had a lot of ground to cover if he wanted to maintain the information network he’d been crafting over the past two years and keep pace with current events enough to stop another bombing. 

            He rather hoped he didn’t know anyone in Berlin.  A few memories had been fighting to surface when he’d seen the wreckage of that scene on the news, and while he had decided he wasn’t entirely interested in dragging them fully up through his subconscious, that didn’t make the whole thing _not_ disquieting.  Something about explosions made his skin crawl… and hopefully it was just that he had the burn scars if not the conscious memories that accompanied them. 

            _Mm…_   He tilted his head appreciatively at the sight of the warehouse in front of him and made his way through the lot towards it. 

            Thankfully, Catherine was still up in the colonies, and decently far away from the cluster that had gone dark.  The circus manager had been caught in wartime crossfire enough times that he did his best to avoid it, and he always took care of his people.  If Adam provided information that said danger was coming to an area he had planned on touring, he knew the other man well enough by now to realize he’d change the schedule.  It was hardly a guarantee of safety, but it was as good as anything was going to get in the current climate, and he was alright with that.  If anything was ever too sure in life, it wouldn’t really be life anymore. 

            The door was very obviously bolted and chained securely shut, but there was a window that was conveniently easy to unlock around the far side.  It was small, but big enough to suit his purposes.  Once inside, he began exploring, taking note of useful structures…  plenty of things that would work well enough… but couldn’t help a smile as he found a _perfect_ opening upwards on the second floor that was such that it could only be seen from a few angles.  Balancing his duffel on his palms, he lifted it up into the cavity and let it topple to one side of the impromptu entrance before coiling his muscles and leaping up after it.  Shifting the bag further over, he moved to take his flashlight back off his belt before brushing his hand against something that made him frown. 

            After a moment’s confusion, he hit the button to turn on the lantern-style flashlight sitting rather oddly in the middle of the floor. 

            _Hm._   This… was unexpected. 

            There was a rather decent assortment of bags, boxes, and trunks... some of which looked rather like ammo tins.  Curious, he reached out and popped the latch on one, opening the lid to confirm that notion.  Shrugging, he moved forward and yanked down the zipper on a soft suitcase and was greeted with the sight of several high-end machine rifles and at least eighteen full clips.  He considered them for a moment before turning to consider the other various containers around the room, fairly certain that that case, in particular, had grenades in it… and that _that_ one was familiar. 

            Reaching out, he undid the latches and almost instinctively grabbed the large combat knife out of the foam it rested in and settled into a fighting stance.  The weight was comfortable, and he took a few practice swipes to assess its weight before deciding that it just felt _right_ – better than anything else he’d picked up for close combat.  There was an odd roughness at the handle near the base of the blade that intrigued him enough to bring it closer to the lamp… and after a long moment, he smiled.  Etched carefully into the metal was one word. 

            _Nanashi._  

            Looking around the room again, then back to the bag he’d brought in with him, he smirked. 

            Evidently, he’d had this thought before. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Evening**

            “Am I going to continue doing any work with the Chinese?” Dorothy asked in a resigned tone. 

            Relena frowned, looking up from the magazine they had been pawing through.  “So long as you don’t mind,” she appealed immediately.  “I trust you, so I’ve been leaving it to you more, but if-” 

            “It’s not the task,” Dorothy interrupted, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture.  “I find the change of scenery perfectly agreeable.  Ooh!”  She pointed to a picture.  “That one.” 

            Relena looked back down and made a considering noise.  “Maybe.  What _is_ it about, then?” 

            The other woman made a face.  “Mu.” 

            _Mm, I probably ought to have seen that coming._   She smiled a little.  “She’s too mellow for you?”  Their personalities weren’t exactly compatible, Relena would admit.  Mu… tolerated eccentricity and did her job.  She was quiet, and kept to herself a lot of the time, though not in an offensive way.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise that she was clashing with Dorothy’s outright flamboyance.  The younger woman’s immaturity probably didn’t help the relationship either. 

            “She’s a complete stick in the mud,” Dorothy groused, dog-earing the page and flipping to the next.  “And there’s something else too, but I can’t put my finger on it.” 

            Relena sighed a little.  Mu… was entirely functional, and calm enough, but it was wholly conceivable that the American woman was still in a stage of grief.  _Also…_   “Do you think she considers you partially responsible for _Libra_?” 

            “I only risked my life trying to stop Milliardo from firing on the planet by bodily flinging myself at him,” she noted acidly. 

            “She’s still American.  It might not be rational.”  Mu made a point not to lash out at people, but Dorothy had a way of crawling under a person’s skin when she wanted to. 

            She rolled her eyes and shook her head, flipping the page again.  “Valid facts, but no.  I considered that; it’s something else.” 

            A weight sunk deep into her stomach.  Dorothy had good instincts, and however offbeat the woman could be, Relena had come to trust her completely on things like this.  “How?” 

            Her friend pouted.  “My reasons never make sense to anyone else.” 

            _No, but they were usually spot on anyway._   “That’s because you’re a natural at this,” she assured her quietly. 

            However highly analytical Dorothy was, she did it all subconsciously.  Or, at the very least, it wasn’t a thought process she could trace out for someone else.  She saw details everyone else dismissed and painted them into a larger picture with a frightening accuracy, all without fully understanding what the details themselves had originally been.  She didn’t know how she knew, generally… she just _did_.  It was why she could get to people as well as she did.  She didn’t seem to actively understand her own behavior enough to recognize how ridiculously petty it could be, but she knew the effect it would have, and she didn’t cast impressions she didn’t fully intend. 

            “She watches me.  She watches everything, things that she shouldn’t care about.”  The noblewoman looked up and they met eyes.  “She forgets too much that she _should_ have known, if she pays that much attention.  She’s cozy when it gets her attention, and annoying if it gets her more or less.  She’s…”  The woman’s eyes narrowed.  “Something is _wrong_ with her.” 

            …It sounded catty and generally wretched and paranoid, but Dorothy wouldn’t have said all this if that was all; she just would have happily done her best to make the other woman miserable.  So, put through the filter, she found Lieutenant Ackroyd’s behavior suspicious… and considering Dorothy’s definition of ‘suspicious’ and her high tolerance to weird social quirks altogether, that was…  very worrisome. 

            Relena looked back down to the magazine and flipped a page, considering the pictures absently, but with her mind focused on the problem before her.  “If you’re right,” she noted after a moment, stilling her lips out of habit, “then what are the chances she’s informing on us?” 

            Dorothy was silent for a long moment before deciding, “That depends on Jake.” 

            Relena felt her stomach sink even deeper.  “Jake didn’t want to hire her,” she admitted quietly. 

            Dorothy’s lips pressed tight.  “So he said.” 

            Relena closed her eyes, considering the possibilities whirling before her.  If Mu worked for someone else, the last person it would be was her brother; it would be a resistance group.  If she was getting information out, it would have to slip through Jake’s security measures.  Though of course, with her access off the grounds, that wouldn’t be as difficult as it might otherwise seem.  It would depend on how often she reported…  and how much of her seeming contentment was an act or real. 

            But if Jake did know about Treize’s survival, then he had kept it to himself.  And if he had kept it to himself, then he could either be protecting an old friend, or moving against others offensively.  If he was working with Treize the way he had done over and over again in the past, then…  The possibilities spiraled. 

            The way he looked at her now…  They had both acknowledged it a handful of weeks ago, and yet not.  His eyes sparked when he watched her and thought she couldn’t see, and her heart sped up every time.  He was so careful to stay on the same level of contact with her, like nothing had changed, but kept such a distance.  She’d seen the request in his expression when it had first begun, and had matched it with her own control in response… 

            Things had changed, but neither of them wanted to allow the alteration.  She had decided that if he wanted to keep his distance, then she would do the same, because if he thought that… that that _lure_ was a bad idea, then frankly, it _was_.  She didn’t show that she noticed how he breathed more deeply than he needed to when she was in his personal space, and he didn’t say anything if her own breath quickened.  They would stay where they were, and just… wait for it to pass.  She’d been attracted to him when they first met, after all, and it had faded out once before. 

            But then Engineer Kailì Lao had told her about Treize, and that cast a far darker light on all potential reasoning. 

            And yet, there was the fact that it really might _not_ be more than it seemed. 

            Sighing, she looked out the window… and blinked at the sight of Jake standing outside with David.  “Hm.  Thea?” 

            The other woman looked up, and paused at the sight herself.  “They look cold.” 

            Relena had noticed the lack of coats herself, and considering the fact Jake, at least, despised the cold and generally refused to go outside without a scarf?  That was odd.  His arms were crossed, to add to the image… and then the full posturing of both men caught up to her and her breath caught in her throat. 

            “They’re _angry_ ,” Dorothy murmured, fascinated. 

            Relena could only nod.  Despite the defensive posture, there was something downright _aggressive_ about Jake’s stance, and David was leaning forward as he gestured tightly… though he flinched back when the other colonel stepped forward.  The next moment he was shaking his head the way he did when frustrated, not backing away, actually leaning more into the other man’s space…  and then Jake whirled and stormed away, taking a wide curve around his friend and heading back into the house.  After another irritated toss of his head, Mitchell followed after him. 

            “Now what was that about?” Dorothy muttered, and Relena turned to see her staring off into the distance, lost in thought. 

            Relena felt her throat tighten.  “This isn’t the first time.”  She remembered Jake’s voice snapping out a cold ‘No’ over and over again to Mitchell over the phone from the conversation she’d overhead a few weeks ago. 

            “Mitchell took the conversation outside so they wouldn’t be overheard,” Dorothy pointed out. 

            “Mailin is fluent,” Relena agreed.  “The jump to Japanese wouldn’t have done its usual trick.”  _And the body language, of course, would be a dead giveaway._  

            “Was that a camera blind spot?” 

            Relena had no idea, but the notion didn’t seem too far out of hand.  At the same time, however, if David had been the one to lead, he wouldn’t be as familiar with the camera and mic angles.  Considering that for a moment, she came to a decision.  “I’ll talk to Lin.” 

            There was a chance that whatever they were fighting about lately would shine more light on her current dilemma.  Jake and David teased and tussled, they disagreed and argued, but always in a friendly way; their body language read like annoyed brothers at their worst.  The exceptions to that had only been when Dave had been trying to stop Jake’s assault on his father, the argument she had overheard on the phone… and now.  This was suspicious and worrisome in and of itself… and if it turned out to have nothing to do with her current worries, then she still wanted to know what was causing such severe friction between her friends. 

            Dorothy looked at her sidelong, obviously assessing, but in the end she nodded and looked back to the spot their two friends had been in without comment.  “Best do it tonight – Jake already agreed to take Addie and I out.” 

            She nodded.  She could have a word with him while her colonel was getting ready, and handle the affair while Jake was out of the house entirely.  Adelia hadn’t had a chance to get out and do something fun since before her son was born, and Jake had suggested she join he and Dorothy on their next trip to the clubs.  The timing had worked out badly for David’s surprise visit, so Relena had decided to leave the boys to have some time to themselves before it was time for them to go, seeing as she would be able to spend the entirely of the evening with Dave. 

            “Don’t approach David, Lena.  See if he tries to draw you in first.” 

            “I planned on it,” Relena assured her firmly.  It went without saying that Dorothy would keep a close eye on Jake too, tonight, and see how much this was bothering him.  Saying it aloud would annoy her finicky friend – she would take it as an implication that Relena thought she was stupid. 

            Dorothy nodded firmly in turn. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – City – Night**

            The doorman gave him a highly amused look when tonight he showed up with a woman on each arm instead of just one, and Jake winked at him as they passed.  Addie and Dorothy were giggling uproariously about God only knew what. 

            He was glad that the two women had hit it off, for all that he hadn’t expected it.  Admittedly, he hadn’t known Addie for several years now and didn’t have as good of a grasp on her personality as he had before, but she had always been almost painfully practical – he doubted more responsibility would alter that.  At the same time, however, Dorothy seemed to have gone out of her way to befriend his friend, and it was good for her to have something carefree to focus on too.  Frivolity had a way of taking the edge off of a hard life. 

            It helped that she was also practically-minded enough to realize that he and Dorothy trying to dote on her had little to do with charity and everything with the joy of making someone happy…  And, well, with Thea, she hadn’t taken long to realize it might have just been something to do.  Adelia didn’t offend easily, and took things simply as they were…  which was what had originally drawn him to her.  She didn’t analyze by her own standards; instead, she had a talent for instinctively knowing the standard of who she was dealing with, and using that exclusively. 

            The music was essentially deafening, and Dorothy pulled Addie away from him towards the crowded dance floor.  For the moment, he decided to find somewhere to sit back and keep an eye on them.  He would end up dancing eventually, but he liked at least _some_ amount of time to acclimate.  Once he’d been there a while the noise and crowd stopped bothering him so much, but at the moment, his senses were screaming danger. 

            It would wear down into easy anonymity soon enough.  Until it did, he could calm the paranoia a bit by standing back and scoping out details of possible dangers. 

            This really wasn’t his kind of thing…  _Well, mostly._   His uncle had coached him endlessly on the dangers of people in general and loss of focus especially, but… life was hardly so cut and dry.  _The best part about understanding all the rules is knowing how to break them and get away with it._  

            His uncle had never faltered, never dropped his vigilance for a moment – but he’d also never stopped working, and never took time for himself.  Everything was a lesson, all measures taken to the point of perfection more or less just for the _sake_ of perfection, and he’d just… _existed_.  He raised his children and he worked… and that was it. 

            That had been one of the first things he’d actually come to _get_ about what was wrong with how he grew up – that being able to _play_ was important too.  That it could feel so _good_ to do something entirely pointless, just for fun.  Dancing or shopping – though Amarianna had originally couched those as lessons for required social functions.  David was the one who introduced him to video games, though he’d still goaded him into it with comments about reflexes needing to be perfect, and then the competition without anything at stake… 

            That had been the closest he’d come to playing with Junior since Jack happened, and he’d been so homesick after that first night he’d refused to talk to _any_ of them for a week…  But then had Lu practically dragged him home for her dad’s birthday to play absurd board games, going on about how it wasn’t any fun without a third person and guilt tripping him about how they hadn’t been able to play since her mom had died, and… and something had _clicked_.  The Noins were picky about who they would let into their home… and so was Amarianna.  It wasn’t that they _couldn’t_ … 

            _Life is supposed to be about **choice**._   Not what you were good at, though that certainly weighed in, but…  Life shouldn’t just be about what you _need_ – not if it’s a good life.  It was about what you _wanted_.  And he hadn’t _understood_ what ‘want’ was when he was a kid, because his uncle hadn’t ever given them options.  He’d just… done the same things he always did, and he and Junior were along for the ride. 

            But he could _choose_ who he did or didn’t want to spend time with… and looking back, that was really the first decision he’d ever made in his life.  He’d left Jack behind in favor of bantering with Treize again.  For memories of dropping Junior on the library floor with a coloring book and some crayons so he could dig through the books for something interesting while the adults were busy.  After the custody suit, the Khushrenadas were the only familiar people he could think of who weren’t either under a label of suspicious or target… 

            Though whether Treize’s mom had been the closest thing his uncle had to a friend or if she had been a frequent _client_ , he’d never found out.  _Even if it was the former, it probably started as the latter,_ he mused, not for the first time.  Amarianna Khushrenada née Catalonia _was_ Dorothy’s paternal aunt. 

            He _chose_ to spend time with Treize’s cousin, the woman who was practically Lena’s little sister somehow, because he cared about her.  He wanted her happy, and he wanted her safe, and the dancing was just another way to move – and he’d yet to find a single form of fluid motion that he _didn’t_ enjoy.  He didn’t usually like crowds, but the intent was different here… it half the reason Thea liked this place.  You could _feel_ the _attention_.  _Viscerally focused intent..._   There was _energy_ here, a sort of reverberating joy of music and motion, exhibition and appreciation without a bar held for status quo… 

            He could appreciate that. 

            He might have a hard time trusting people around him, but these were _happy_ people, and that made a world of difference… and there was something distinctly relaxing about the ambiguity of a crowd like this.  He knew how to blend in, and he _always_ felt good when he knew he was helping someone he cared about.  He was confident enough in himself that he could handle a situation arising here even with his hearing compromised… and that was enough, once he settled the instincts he’d been instilled with so early on in childhood he couldn’t remember. 

            That, and the place certainly had its charms – he was hardly immune to the ever tantalizing flashes of female skin on display.  He had to spend in inordinate amount of time in the shower before he could go sleep just meters away from Relena on club nights. 

            It almost made him want to have a private room again – _almost_. 

            The whole room smelled like her, these days…  It was intoxicatingly distracting, and he didn’t want to lose it.  _Not yet._   Not ever, really, but, well… 

            _Stop.  Be here, now._   After all, this wasn’t _just_ Dorothy’s escape, these days. 

            Clubs were always fantastic places to people watch.  Eccentric behavior was the norm, not even getting into the clothing… and his own company was no exception.  Dorothy had convinced Addie to let her spray _pink_ temporary dye, of all things, in her hair, so she had streaks similar to Dorothy’s bright green, and while the corset and pants Addie was wearing covered more than Dorothy’s slinky green dress, neither ensemble left much to the imagination. 

            Shaking his head and laughing as Addie matched Dorothy’s outlandish dancing move for move, he tried to sink his nerves deeper into the back of his brain and speed the process up.  They could accept the attentions of anyone they wanted, but Dorothy only let it go so far, and Addie had made it clear that she didn’t want to be touched by any stranger with intentions.  With the kind of attention they were starting to attract, he needed to go be an intimidating male presence to maintain that boundary soo- 

            “ _Jake_?!  Oh my God, it _is_ you!” 

            _That doesn’t bode well.  So much for anonymity._   Narrowing his eyes, he turned to see who the _hell_ had recognized him… and fought the urge to swear. 

            She wasn’t immediately recognizable in ridiculously short shorts and a billowing crop top that moved loosely enough to suggest she wore nothing beneath it – like someone might catch an interesting glimpse if they watched long enough.  Her auburn hair was twisted up and spiked with something sparkly that matched the glitter painted around her eyes, but she was hardly disguised. 

            Apparently, Dorothy wasn’t the only noblewoman who preferred this sort of entertainment. 

            He didn’t bother to hide his irritation at finding her here; his evening was about to go to complete shit.  “Olivia,” he greeted evenly.  “I wouldn’t have expected to find you here.” 

            She laughed and reached up to cover her mouth with one hand as she did so, her shirt twisting and the light catching on yet more shimmer in some pattern on the shirt as the bangles she wore on one arm jangled.  He fought the urge to twitch as his ears began to ring.  “And I you!” she returned easily.  “You look _good_!” 

            As if he would wear something that _wasn’t_ sensually flattering to a place like this.  “And you’re all shiny,” he noted dryly.  He glanced back towards the girls; however impossibly long the Dontelaine woman made her legs look, he was here for a _reason_.  She didn’t need to get any more annoying ideas than she already had anyway. 

            Her eyes widened.  “Is…?”  She focused on the dance floor herself. 

            “No.”  The last thing he needed was for someone to say Relena’s name here, in relation to him.  It wasn’t common enough to just brush off. 

            Her returning look was far more interested, heading in the direction of seductive.  “Then _you_ -” 

            “No.” 

            She frowned, looking back out to the floor.  “But then…  Oh.”  Still frowning, she looked back to him, then Dorothy, seemingly incredulous.  “You’re not-” 

            “I’m not anything,” he negated immediately, not really caring for _any_ thoughts that might have occurred to her. 

            “Well, that’s a start,” she decided cheerfully. 

            “No, it’s really not,” he noted.  “It makes for a pretty decent end, actually.”  Pushing away from the wall, he made his way down to the girls.  _I might as well make what I can of the evening before Dorothy sees her and starts raining down brimstone._   Today had already shown a pattern for slipping from bad to worse – instead of proving himself wrong again by thinking it couldn’t go any more downhill, he was just going to take what he could while it lasted. 

            Surprisingly, it actually lasted a good two hours, which had to count for some kind of success.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he heard a deadly hiss of “that _bitch_ ” that officially called the peacetime. 

            Not sure at the moment where the redhead was, he took the precaution of looping his arm around Dorothy’s waist a bare moment before she tried to launch into the crowd – thereby preventing her from doing something he knew _she_ wouldn’t regret, but that everyone else who ever heard about it _would_. 

            “Calm down,” he muttered in her ear as she tried to pull away. 

            “She can’t _be_ here!” she snarled. 

            He forcibly pulled her arms to her body and added them to his grip around her.  Knowing it was futile, but trying all the same, he pointed out, “It’s public property, Thea.  The people who come through here are one of the reasons you _like_ it.” 

            She stopped fighting him, but was still furious enough that she visibly shook.  “I don’t _want_ her here,” she hissed, tone shifting. 

            _…That’s not  anger anymore._   Extremely glad that he’d had the foresight to have Vaughn come in after running into Olivia, he looked up to where the other man was sitting in a lounge with Addie and gestured before beginning to half lead, half carry Dorothy out of the crowd.  “I know,” he reassured her quietly. 

            “This ruins everything!” she wailed, practically dropping her weight on him. 

            A little melodramatic, but he followed the point.  “I know,” he repeated softly, taking on more of her weight and focusing on getting them to the back halls near the bathroom; she needed a little bit of privacy.  When a bouncer frowned and moved to tell him he couldn’t pass, he pulled a few hundreds out of one pocket and handed them to him without stopping; the man didn’t try to press it. 

            Inwardly, Jake felt like rolling his eyes.  That was the entire point of bribes, of course, but the pure ease of it always irritated him. 

            There didn’t appear to be anyone nearby when she twisted to bury her face against his shoulder and start sobbing.  Rubbing small circles over her back, he tapped at the back of her calf with one toe to get her take off the heels she was wearing.  Dorothy was taller than him _barefoot_ ; she was going to get a crick in her neck at their current height differences.  She shakily stepped out of them without looking up, and he focused on just being there for her. 

            The blonde in his arms had been getting more and more depressed over the past few weeks, and he hadn’t been able to sort out what to do about it – not unless she brought up the problem.  Guessing would _not_ help with the volatile woman if he didn’t get it right, and her mind just worked too differently to have any decent chance of success at the deeper issues.  “Shh…  It’ll be alright.”  It couldn’t be all that hard to sort out. 

            “She…”  Her voice hitched and she tried again.  “She’s destroying my _life_!” 

            “She’s nowhere _near_ good enough to pull that off,” he coaxed, running a hand over her hair. 

            “She’s going to take Lena away from me!” 

            He snorted.  _Really?_   “Never.” 

            “She’s trying to sway her!  And Lena _likes_ her!” 

            “Lena is too steadfast for that, and the woman makes a good ally.” 

            “ _I’m_ a better ally!” she snapped, sobbing harder. 

            “Exactly,” he soothed.  It helped – or didn’t, in this case – that the girl was also amiable, had a similar personality to the princess, and could probably teach her a few things as well as offer up the power she had under her, but that didn’t need to be said right now.  It wasn’t as though Dorothy’s position would change with the princess, whoever else she managed to get under her influence – Relena was kind and fair and perceptive enough to not burn one bridge for another.  She was compassionate enough to make sure everyone felt their value.  _Especially so when you consider how easily she’s been tossed aside by those she respected in the past._  

            “Besides, you’re not just better,” he reminded her.  “You’re _more_ than an ally.  You’re her friend, and Lena _loves_ you.”  He tilted his head up and kissed her cheek before leaning back so she could meet his eyes if she wanted to.  “No one’s going to forget about you, so there’s no need to worry that your best friend is going to up and replace you.  That’s not how she works, and you know it.” 

            Instead of taking in the reassurance as he’d hoped, however, she just held onto him tighter and kept on sobbing.  Sighing, he gave up for the time being and just held her.  He’d long since gotten used to Dorothy’s physical presence… and when she felt bad, she craved touch the same as a child.  “Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay… you’ll be fine…” he soothed.  Sighing a little, he suggested, “The bitch isn’t worth crying over.”  He’d make a joke about all the glittery body paint if he wasn’t worried that she secretly admired the sparkles. 

            The problem with Olivia was equal parts jealousy and fear of failure.  It was preposterous, but…  well, it probably had something to do with the redhead being both actively not snooty, the same way Relena was, and a lot closer to social norms than Dorothy was.  The match-up was pretty fantastic, in terms of pure compatibility, and there was an implied threat there…  but it could hardly erase the long history between Dorothy and Relena.  Experience was a true bond forged that didn’t break over any less than tragedy, and Relena had proven over and over again that even that didn’t stop her from hanging on to everything she had with a death grip. 

            He sighed, closing his eyes and considering his own advice.  Honestly, Relena’s faithful nature… 

            Sometimes, these days, he was just so damned _tired_. 

            Dropping his forehead down to Dorothy’s shoulder like she had hers to his, he breathed in the thick but delicate scent of her perfume, and murmured, “Don’t cry, Thea…” 

            “I’m damned!” she cried instead, shoulder shaking enough that it was hard to lean back on her.  “No matter what happens now, I’m damned!  I can’t…”  Her voice rose in pitch with another sob. 

            “That’s not true,” he refuted quietly.  After a long moment, he softly added, “I don’t know what has been bothering you so much recently, but you’re _not_ damned to anything, Dorothy.” 

            “I _am_!” 

            “If you’re damned to anything, I’ll save you back out of it,” he promised. 

            “You _can’t_!” 

            “You don’t believe that,” he ensured smoothly, rubbing at her back again.  “I would fix it for you.”  Sometimes, with Dorothy, you just had to go back to the same absolutes you’d use for a child.  It wasn’t for any lack of intelligence that that might imply, though.  Instead… it was that she recognized the safety of ultimatums.  If there were no conditions in place, no complications for her to count, no loopholes that could be devised, it became a comfort.  It was something about the way her head worked; sometimes, she just needed her intellect removed from the equation in order to cope with the real world. 

            She didn’t answer for a long moment, and she stilled enough that he began to hope that it had worked.  Finally, however, she whispered, “You’re a liar.” 

            He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall, as a lance of cold piercing through his chest… and tried to come up with an argument for that that _wasn’t_ a lie.  She trembled again, but didn’t resume crying, and didn’t pull away… and after a long moment, he knew what to say. 

            “I could never stand by and just let you be hurt, Dorothy.”  She was his friend… she was practically Relena’s sister.  She drove him up the wall sometimes, but he didn’t back down once he made a friend.  He didn’t desert anyone he truly attached himself to… 

            It had _hurt_ to find out how much bad had come down on Adelia and Daniella.  He had stayed up that night hunting down all the details he could on everyone he had come to love before and after them, to try to confirm that as many of them were okay as he possibly could…  He’d reached out to a few that had fallen on hard times the next morning.  But it tore at him, how many he couldn’t find at all.  There had been a reason he had avoided the idea. 

            Leia. 

            Mariemaia. 

            He needed to go _see_ Des, quit avoiding him… 

            _…Lucrezia._  

            He still couldn’t decide if she had been real, in Amsterdam, or if he had just imagined her.  He wanted so badly for it to be true, that she had been there, but he wanted it so damned _bad_ …  It was too good to have been real; to finally have proof. 

            The idea that she might not be… he _couldn’t_ let himself think about it. 

            “…I’m sorry,” Dorothy whispered. 

            “…Don’t be,” he murmured after deciding he really meant it.  He _was_ a liar, and they both knew it.  But some things counted no matter what, and she’d conceded that.  Lies were to get out of corners that the truth painted you into… and it was a fell swoop, if the curtains you built all came crashing down.  If you were willing to lie about anything to anyone, you had no limits, but… 

            _A world without **anyone** to be your exception is worthless.  _ He crushed her to his chest for a long moment, debating… and decided, frankly, _Why the hell not?_  

            “Can I ask you something?” he whispered reluctantly.  “Just between us?” 

            He loved that she stopped to consider what that _meant_ and debated before just agreeing, like so many others would.  “Yes.” 

            He licked his lips, closing his eyes again and trying to choose exactly what words… before deciding to stare up at the ceiling, not the friend in his arms.  If you weren’t willing to whitewash your way back out of a corner, you had to start making decisions that defied _something_ … and if he was entirely honest, he had been doing the equivalent of splashing the white primer everywhere haphazardly already.  He was running out of pride to sacrifice, and he knew it. 

            “How…”  He’d done it before, but never so big as this, never so dire…  and there were a few ways through it, David wouldn’t stop harping… 

            But for maybe the fifth time in his life, he was terrified of what might come next.  He… he didn’t want to go back.  He couldn’t _stand_ to lose it again… and he was running out of time.  There was a small chance that Dorothy could help, for all that he couldn’t possibly let her… 

            He smiled a little ruefully, closing his eyes again, the irony ringing through him.  He couldn’t handle the idea of maybe letting Dorothy just ‘fix it’.  Maybe because he didn’t believe it would work… and maybe because there was no way he could surrender what little control he had, even as it slipped through his fingers like sand. 

            His own principles that he had crafted and stood by through everything were going to tear him to pieces before this was done. 

            “How?” Dorothy asked quietly. 

            Opening his eyes to stare back up at the ceiling, he faintly heard himself ask, “How can you betray one friend for another?” 

            “…Jake?”  Her voice shook. 

            He closed his eyes again before he could start to cry too.  “I just…  I don’t understand.  How… could anyone bear it?”  Beloved was without calculable value, but impossibly fragile.  It could be gone in the blink of an eye, and you wouldn’t even know until hours or weeks, months later… 

            And there was no way to come back from it.  “I can’t believe it’s possible,” he whispered after a moment, finally looking back at her, feeling the tears leak out of his eyes.  More than aware that he was repeating her from before but knowing he couldn’t come up with any better, he shook his head a little and shrugged.  “I just _can’t_.” 

-

***

-

**July 4 th 198 – Friday – Skopje, Macedonia – The Skyview**

            “Huh.” 

            “Mm?”  Odin shut the door, pocketing the card key they had picked up at the front desk. 

            She tossed him an irritated look as she crumbled the plastic backing in one hand, shifting her pack’s weight and moving over to the table to set it down.  “This is a lot nicer than we usually do,” she explained. 

            He shrugged, moving further into the suite as well.  “He’s making a point.”  Given the large kitchen, leather couch, and obviously separate bedrooms, he wondered if they would be staying more than one night. 

            His answer seemed to amuse her, and she set her duffel down to dig through it.  “Is it a ‘because I can’ sort of point?” 

            Odin frowned, resisting the urge to just walk away and stop talking to her.  She’d been in this mood all day. 

            It didn’t exactly do much for _his_ mood. 

            Having pulled the PlayPaq out, she turned to face him fully and sighed, looking tired.  “Okay… what?” 

            He carefully unclenched his jaw and focused on relaxing the muscles in his face for a few moments before answering.  “The last time I was in this city, we slept in an abandoned tool shed.”  It had been cold enough that he’d actually gotten frostbite, and Quatre had caught a cough that quickly turned into pneumonia. 

            …It had been the last time, while that Regime tracker was still set on him, that he had been desperate enough to try hacking them funds.  He had gotten them what they needed before getting caught out, but it hadn’t exactly helped his friend recover when he had had to pick him up and literally run to avoid capture.  They had managed to stow away on a train further south, where it was warmer, but in the end they had had to spend the majority of the money just putting themselves back together. 

            This town…  had probably been one of their lowest points, after _Libra_ fell.  The aftermath of what had happened here had brought him closer to eating a bullet than any of the other times he had considered pulling the trigger. 

            Well, any of the times he had considered it after Antarctica, at least. 

            Setting his own bag down, he decided to see what the bathroom looked like. 

            “So…”  Marlé trailed after him, sounding unsure of herself now.  “It’s for the contrast?” 

            He looked back at her, considering her expression, and nodded.  Coming here, meeting like this, had been entirely Quatre’s decision.  The symbolism of it had appealed to his friend, and that could only mean one thing: he was confident.  He wasn’t frightened anymore.  He didn’t think he needed to hide.  “It means he’s done with running.  He’s ready to make his move.”  Opening the door and flicking on the light, he found himself staring. 

            The bathtub was somewhat reminiscent of the hot tub in Sudan. 

            Quickly, he considered.  The messages he and Quatre had exchanged had set the meeting time for a few hours from now, and originally he hadn’t intended to arrive this early; Marlé had been tired enough to start falling asleep leaning against his side, however.  Looking back to her, he focused on the PlayPaq in her hand.  “What are you doing?” 

            She rolled her eyes and turned to go.  “Leaving you alone with the building’s hot water supply.” 

            He frowned, though a smile tugged at one side of his mouth at the same time.  “But what are you doing?” he asked curiously. 

            “Stuff,” she returned cheerfully, waving at him with the hand holding the Paq without looking back.  “Exploring the room, gaming… maybe napping.”  Grinning over one shoulder, she noted, “Don’t worry, if I can manage myself in Amsterdam, I don’t think I’ll get so lost you can’t find me, no matter how big this room is.” 

            He grinned back before ducking into the bathroom.  At least she was acting like herself again. 

-

***

-

            Cory waited for the girl to go back out into the main room and he heard the water start to run before opening the wardrobe door and climbing out, checking the time on the bedside clock.  Quatre hadn’t said how long he was going to be out… but seeing as he’d only just left, and he had thought Heero would be late if anything, it probably wasn’t going to be for a while.  If he stayed hidden somewhere in the suite, it was a good chance he’d be found before Quatre came back… and this was Quatre’s friend, anyway. 

            He hadn’t said anything about a girl, though. 

            Shrugging – it wasn’t as though there was any point in tiptoeing if he wasn’t going to hide – he ambled out of the bedroom towards the kitchen and settled down on one of barstools set up against the breakfast bar, sprawling his arms out so it would be clear he was relaxed and unarmed, resting his chin on the tile of the counter and watching her put stuff in the fridge.  He was wondering what she’d do when she saw him…  but he didn’t expect her to just glance over her shoulder, purse her lips, and turn back to bump the fridge further open while she reached down to dig deeper in her bag. 

            He blinked, trying to… decide how to take that. 

            She glanced back at him, as if to see if he was going to do anything interesting, and he sat up straighter almost in spite of himself.  “Hi.” 

            Her smile was kind of a smirk.  “Hello.”  After a moment, she shrugged her right shoulder towards the inside of the fridge.  “Are you hungry?” 

            He was _always_ hungry.  _But…_   “Quatre said he was bringing food back.” 

            “Mm, that sounds good,” she decided, standing up and shutting the door.  Picking up the bag, she set it on the counter and started pulling more stuff out of it.  “Vinegar or original?” 

            _What?_   “Vinegar?” 

            “Cool.”  She turned away from the counter, tugging at the sides of a plastic bag with both hands; he jumped at the loud ‘pop’ sound it made, then blinked as the tangy smell of vinegar flooded the room, making his mouth water.  She dug a hand into it and pulled out a chip as she walked up to him, holding out the bag.  “My mom got me hooked on these.  You should try one.”  When he didn’t make a move, she just shrugged again and dropped it between his hands before moving for the couch.  “I have a PlayPaq.  Do you want to play something?  I can rig up a second controller.” 

            He perked up at that, twisting to watch her sit down before staring back at the chips…  “Okay!”  Holding onto the bag, he jumped to his feet and followed her.  “I haven’t played anything in years.” 

            “Mm.”  She frowned.  “Is it okay that they’re in English?” 

            He frowned back at her, wondering why _not_ …  and realized what she’d _said_. 

            _“È va bene quello il giochi sei in Inglese?”_  

            He hadn’t even noticed. 

            Giggling, he dropped onto the couch next to her, feeling giddy.  “English is good,” he told her in the more common language.  “I’m good at English.” 

            She snickered, grabbing the cables she had left on the coffee table earlier and standing back up to mess with the TV.  “If you say so.” 

-

***

-

            Quatre jerked back as he unlocked the door and was practically hit in the face with a wall of noise. 

            “Ah, no!  Left!  Left, the pink one!” 

            The first thing he focused on, in spite of the sound barrage, was the pair was duffel bags leaning against the table that definitely hadn’t been there earlier.  Stepping in and shutting the door behind him with one toe, he slipped into the kitchen to set down the carryout… and considered the extra teenager sitting in his living room.  Blonde hair hung loose past the shoulders, slender build, definitely female… he couldn’t guess her age without seeing her face.  She was comfortable, amused, and very focused on the bright colors lancing across the screen in abstract designs.  Cory… 

            He didn’t need to be an empath to see the kid was having the time of his life. 

            Leaning forward, he rested his arms on the counter by the sink and tried to work out the mechanics of the game, just basking in the happy tumult of excitement washing around him.  If he moved any closer to them they would notice him and stop what they were doing, and this was nice, even if his eardrums protested.  When he focused, he could feel another mind off to his left, though it was muted almost as much as Cory could be when he was quietly content… 

            He wondered if that might be why, before _Libra_ , he had always found something about Heero genuinely calming.  It had been Heero that had guided him back from the shores of insanity and suicide after everything with Zero.  Heero, utterly unflappable in the face of failure and devastation and subjugation, who reminded him it was possible to come back from absolute despair… 

            Seeing Heero come apart at the seams bit by bit after the war had broken him far more than _Libra’s_ crash had. 

            “Ooh, bonus level,” the girl crowed, then made a face, passing her controller – was that a cell phone? – over to Cory.  “I don’t like this song; you try.”  Then, as the boy fumbled with the machine so as to not miss the start of the level, she bounced up off the couch and met Quatre’s eyes, heading right for him. 

            No fear, no confusion, no hostility… but an unbelievable level of pure self-assurance and strong but relaxed curiosity.  Her eyes were one of the palest shades of blue he’d ever seen on a person, her gaze assessing…  Seeing her face on, he’d probably gauge her at fourteen years. 

            She smiled and brushed past him to open the fridge and dig out three different flavors of soda in varying containers, which she then held out to him in a silent question.  Amused, he took the lemon-lime and offered her a smile of his own, lifting the drink in a cheers.  She winked at him and ducked back behind the fridge door to put the cola back; she kept the orange cream. 

            Quatre felt his focus fall back to the pair of duffels by the table as he unscrewed the cap, and thought he had an idea as to why Dr. Srona had been amused by Cory’s presence.  _She reminds me of Duo._  

            Taking a sip, he grimaced, surprised – then annoyed that he was surprised.  He’d forgotten how _sweet_ this stuff was. 

            The girl sighed at him, though in a patient way.  “You didn’t have to take it if you don’t like it, you know.” 

            He debated telling her that it was polite, but that wasn’t why he’d done it.  “I honestly didn’t think about it,” he told her, taking another small sip, reacquainting himself with the flavor and remembering why he liked it, for all that it had been nearly two years.  “I didn’t remember how different it was from what I’ve had more recently.”  Taking more of a real swallow, letting the sweet fluid spark across his tongue, he sighed a little, happily in the middle of a simple pleasure had hadn’t had access to for so long.  “I do like it.”  She still hadn’t opened hers, however, and he gestured at it. “Why aren’t you drinking?” 

            She gave him an amused look.  “It’s not for me.”  Waving towards the suite’s entrance, she noted, “You tripped the sensor I planted on the door.  I made it clear I was still on the couch, so he knew you were here as soon as you walked in.” 

            Alarm struck up in his brain at the announcement, and he felt his eyes widen in realization that her confidence might not be ill placed; if her comment was anything to go by, it was centered around Heero. 

            Shrugging carelessly, she added, “He’s got to be finished getting dressed by now.  So…”  She grinned as a figure moved up the hall towards the main.  “Hey.” 

            He was taller than Quatre remembered, but then, he hadn’t seen him stand up straight since they were on _Peacemillion_ together, with how his leg had been.  Dressed in dark jeans of what he could tell were a currently popular style and a black long-sleeved shirt with nondescript, faint blue patterning… he would effectively blend into any typical crowd of their age group.  His face had matured and he’d definitely grown into his body better, but he was still very recognizably Heero Yuy, even if he was willingly decently dressed for once.  He had a hand towel draped around his shoulders, and his hair was soaked, his skin flushed.  He’d obviously just come out of the bathroom, especially with the girl’s commentary about getting dressed. 

            Then he smiled ruefully and shook his head, reaching up to pull the towel back off his shoulders and rub at his head with it.  “You’ve changed,” he announced, and Quatre was all at once caught by how much more casual his movements were, compared to the old brusquely efficient motion he’d always associated him with. 

            Before he could say anything to that, however, the girl chipped in for him, bouncing up to her friend.  “Everyone does, don’t they?  Here.”  She held out the soda to him. 

            “Thanks.”  He popped it open, glancing in Quatre’s direction briefly before sweeping his gaze over the room and stopping on Cory.  “Who’s that?” 

            “Haven’t gotten a name yet,” the girl returned cheerfully. 

            “Why not?” 

            “I hypnotized him with my mad gaming skillz,” she announced in a proud tone, before rolling her eyes.  “He didn’t offer or ask mine, so I figured I’d let it stand.”  She shrugged.  “He’s pretty cool.  Seems he’s attached to Quatre.” 

            “Did you know that before you decided he was cool?” Heero asked in a wry tone. 

            “Yeah,” she drawled in an annoyed way.  “I had a gun in my hand until he mentioned Quatre was supposed to be bringing food back.  And even after that, I always have my stunner on me.”  She rolled her eyes.  “Just because I think someone’s okay doesn’t mean I’m going to be an idiot, Odin.” 

            He gave her a very level, bland look that Quatre was all too familiar with, and she raised her brows, hands on her hips, stance very defiant… but there was a pent up excitement, a sort of anticipation radiating through her despite her smug appearance.  He was trying to get a decent read on Heero and piece it together when the man moved forward in a lightning fast strike, only to have the girl move just as fast into a block and counterstrike – which was blocked just as efficiently – before giggling delightedly and _bolting_ back to the couch.  The fact that she just vaulted over the surrounding furniture in her path without a moment’s hesitation or appearance of effort implied an ungodly amount of things… including the fact that perhaps he should judge the girl by what he knew _he_ had been capable of at fourteen. 

            _Or more accurately,_ he thought, focusing back on his old friend, _on what **Heero** could do at that age._   He had never possessed the insanely fast reflexes as the other pilots, probably due to the fact that his younger life had never demanded it; in the end, most of his ingrained physical responses to violence had been learned after he had met the Maguanacs in 193.  After what fighting in the war had taught him – and after surviving in the Sahara – he was now firmly in the same class as the rest of them and imagined he could probably hold even with Duo’s speed… but he had no particular urge to _try_ against the other three. 

            Heero had always been the fastest of them in any case; New Edwards had proven that beyond a doubt. 

            Shaking his head, Heero relaxed his stance and turned back to face him, a broad smile stretching across his face as he tousled at his hair with the towel some more.  “She’s getting good.” 

            _His tone…_   That was the same tone his sisters used when they were unabashedly proud of him. 

            Quatre grinned, relishing in how different Heero had become.  Still so calm and steady, like an anchor, but no longer so _remote_.  “Talented,” Quatre agreed, smiling and giving a tilt of the head to show everything was okay when Cory looked back over in their direction.  “How long have you been teaching her?” 

            “Mm.”  He shrugged one shoulder as he moved around him towards the kitchen.  “A year.” 

            Quatre reconsidered the girl’s physical prowess again and had to fight to shake his head.  “Did she have any training before she met you?” 

            “No.” 

            “That’s amazing,” Quatre muttered, looking back to the two teenagers on the couch.  He’d taught Cory a lot, but… well, most of it was about stealth and hitting hard, not speed and maneuverability.  The first two had had a greater chance of keeping him alive, and as far as he’d understood, it took a lot longer than a year of constant training to build up the latter two skills enough that they could have saved him in the desert. 

            Heero snorted as he deftly untied the knot on the bag of take-out.  “You should see what she can do to a BIOS if you give her ten minutes.  It took her a few weeks of playing with circuit boards to figure out she needed to just write her own operating system, but at this point she can work out all the kinks for multi-way communications, alarm triggers, and can tap most kinds of locator networks on cue.”  He started pulling out boxes of food and examining them. 

            That…  _A year_.  Looking back towards the living room, he found himself asking, “Does she sleep?”  The kid had to be brilliant, no doubt, but still, to take in all that… 

            “A lot,” Heero noted dryly.  “I’m not entirely sure where all the food goes either.”  Pulling another container out of the bag and popping it open, he added, “Her mother says it’s normal.”  He reached back into the bag, and opened the next container without taking it out, and blinked.  “I’m eating this.” 

            “That was actually the idea,” Quatre noted wryly. 

            The other pilot plucked the box and a fork out with one hand, and turned to move back towards the inner suite.  “I meant it possessively,” he returned simply, picking his soda back up off the counter. 

            Quatre just laughed, feeling rather proud of the…  very deeply _cheerful_ emotions he was picking up from the other man.  “That really _was_ the idea,” he insisted, grabbing a fork and carton out of the bunch at random and following.  He’d gotten used to the noise level, and they had turned it down a little, but the idea of escaping it entirely had appeal.  This was a throwback to when he had first started attempting to befriend the others during the war, trying to work out their habits, only it was so much _easier_ when he could pick up mood this easily…  And he didn’t need a damn chisel to break through Heero’s exterior, after all they’d been through together. 

            He blinked as something else occurred to him, and, amazed that he forgotten, watched how smoothly his friend moved.  “You know,” he muttered half-jokingly.  “I really thought they were going to have to cut your leg _off_ at one point.” 

            “Not realistically,” Heero answered readily, which was something of a wonder in and of itself. 

            Quatre laughed again, shaking his head.  “No… I suppose not.”  Still, he’d been stunned when Dr. Srona told him he’d made a full recovery.  Hesitating a moment, he admitted, “I… didn’t mean to leave, when I did.”  He’d considered the idea a few times, but really, most of the plans had _included_ the other man. 

            “You would have said good-bye, if you had,” Heero agreed as he sat in a recliner.  Setting his can down on the side table, he looked out the window and shook his head.  “This place…” 

            He sighed, turning to look out at the view of the city himself.  “Yeah.  Everywhere we went, Heero… almost everywhere, practically, there was a place like this.”  The Winners were nothing if not far spread, and both convenience and privacy at any potential location – for either business or pleasure – was a must.  If you dropped the right names and had the right proofs, you could live anonymously in the lap of luxury… or at least, that was how it had been designed to work. 

            “Your face was too well known,” Heero concluded after a moment. 

            “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Quatre agreed.  He hadn’t been able to walk down the damn _street_ without someone reporting a sighting of him, and he hadn’t had access to any of the pseudonyms he would have needed…  and he hadn’t been convinced that the whole network wasn’t compromised at that point in time, either.  It hadn’t been very clear just which of his sisters Marquise had gotten a hold of, and what information they might deem harmless to offer up willingly, let alone what he had uncovered on his own. 

            This wasn’t an exclusive arrangement either… there would hardly be a point if it had been, because then everyone involved would be implicated.  In the end, it had boiled down to the fact that his anonymity had been irreparably destroyed, and that he could find no way to secure access and get away with it for an hour, let alone a night they could actually sleep through. 

            And of course, if he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Zechs would have had the means to find more of his family.  The network would have been exposed and therefore unusable in the future for any of them, for absolutely no gain.  He had given up on the idea by New Year’s – before the wounds Dorothy left him with had properly scabbed over, while he was still trying to figure out how Heero could continue losing so much blood and still be alive.  Frankly, it had never been worth mentioning. 

            He stared into the glare of the glass, trying to make out the details of his silhouette.  How much of his change in appearance had been things that would have happened anyway?  How much of it was from things he’d gone out of his way to change?  How much was from the desert itself, and the toll it had taken on him… on them all?  He was never going to be able to pick apart the pieces and decipher which was which… and however upsetting that was, logically he knew full well that that was easily the definition of the fabric that made up life itself. 

            There were reasons he had been so disenchanted with his existence by the time he had met Rashid and the others, after all. 

            Strategy could only take you so far on the battlefield.  As Heero had shown him time and again, sometimes it was the pure nerve to put one foot in front of the other that got you through to the end of the game.  At a certain point, you just had to run with it…  And if you planned _with_ that resolve, then victory was sure. 

            “I’m heading back to space soon,” he muttered as he dropped fluidly into the wing chair across from Heero.  “I’ll have more connections to work with there.  I need to wrap up a few loose ends down here first, though, and learn everything that’s happened.  I’ve…”  He stared down at one deeply calloused hand, then back out at the city.  “…been out of the world a while.”  He focused back on Heero, who was watching him intently.  “I need to know everything you know, before I can make a move.” 

            Heero nodded, looking down and away, obviously thinking.  He took a long minute to consider his words… and began to idly stir his food together, not seeming to actually see it.  Finally, however… 

            “Relena’s been busy.” 

            Quatre nodded, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to filter through the methodical maelstrom he was picking up from the other man.  “I’d noticed that.” 

            “Her financial backing, the R.L. Tomorrow Today Fund, worries me.  They built _Peacemillion_ … and I think they might have known about Operation M before even I did.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, theories? Favorites? 
> 
> I’ll point out that the majority of the information that Heero/Odin is inferring about RLTT his last comment are things he noted in the second scene of Chapter 31 “Kindle, Kindle…” of Survival. This being the plot point that it is, there’s a lot more than that tucked around all over the place by most of the characters, but Odin’s really only thought deeply on it once that was shown.


	9. Just Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marlé crashes Lucrezia's rather questionable notion of a roadtrip, Relena begins to really prove just how powerful she really is, and Jake tries to take back control of his life - with very mixed results. Meanwhile, other parties are becoming involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Edit: Largely grammatical and word choice fixes and pacing, but nothing new for plot or details.  
> \--
> 
> On an amusing note, it took me about seventeen pages (though those scenes are not in order of the first seventeen pages anymore) to realize that this chapter was largely focused on communication and the issues therein, if I was really looking for a theme… and then I remembered that hey, that’s the name of the intro for the anime, and I sorta figured, why not? I looked up the lyrics and am actually floored by how extremely romantic they are. For a show that was rather lacking in romance – unless we want to count rabid fangirlism on the parts of Relena, Noin, and Une – it’s… pretty odd, to be honest. 
> 
> Here we go!

**_-_ **

**_ Just Communication _ **

_\--_

_ Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.  –Jim Rohn _

_\--_

_ The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.  –Peter Drucker _

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**July 8 th 198 – Wednesday – Eastern Europe – In Transit**

            **_“Ro, ro, fight the power!”_**

            Hilde blinked at the noise, then grinned.  _Wasn’t that from some anime?_  

            “Check that, would you?” Noin muttered, not taking her eyes off the road. 

            She shrugged and reached over to dig through her General’s coat pockets, procuring the phone and let it scan her fingerprint.  She snorted as she read the text, though – it was obviously a wrong number.  “Someone signing as Odin wants to borrow your car.” 

            To her surprise, Noin hummed out an amused noise.  “Tell him it depends on when.” 

            Hilde frowned, not expecting that, but punched in the message anyhow.  “How does he know you have a car?”  Noin didn’t exactly get out much. 

            The older woman gave her a look.  “He’s been in it.” 

            “Stupid question,” Xu groused sleepily. 

            Hilde turned to glower at him even as she flushed – it _was_ a stupid question, damn it – but he hadn’t even opened his eyes.  If he hadn’t just spoken, she would have dismissed his sprawled form as unconscious. 

            **_“Ro, ro, fight the power!”_**

            “ _‘When do you need it?’_ ” Hilde read out. 

            “Mm…  that gets tricky.”  Noin thought about it for a moment, then grinned.  “Tell him, ‘If you can’t be more exact, we can carpool.’” 

            Hilde choked as Xu sat up fully in the back seat to frown at their general.  She cast them both an amused look.  “What?” 

            “You want someone to just tag along when we have a trunk full of guns and explosives,” the Chinese man noted dryly, “while we do hit-and-run recon across Europe?” 

            The woman smiled beatifically.  “Why not?” 

            Xu groaned and flopped back onto his side.  “Fine.  Whatever.  I’m done.” 

            _Well **I’m** not._   “Who’s Odin?” Hilde demanded, brain spinning. 

            Noin’s eyes lit up.  “You just said his name, didn’t you?” 

            “How do you _know_ him?” she clarified. 

            If anything, Noin just seemed to find this even funnier.  “How do _you_ know him?” 

            “I don’t.” 

            The other woman laughed delightedly.  “If you insist.  Let’s just say he’s an old friend then, mm?”  She raised one brow.  “Are you going to send my message, or do I need to pull over?” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Ooh!”  Olivia covered her open mouth with one hand, then shifted to smile coyly and hold out said hand in a languid notion.  “Forgive me…  My name is Olivia Dontelaine.” 

            Relena fought to keep her expression distractedly unaware of the woman’s actions as the darker of her colonels smiled genially, apparently deciding that ‘oblivious’ was the safest course of action. 

            _Because we aren’t friends at **all** ,_ she couldn’t help but reflect sarcastically.  It was hard to say if she had picked up the habit from him at some point, or if he was reading her body language for cues.  Either way got the job done, really. 

            “Colonel David Mitchell,” he introduced as he took her hand and kissed it formally.  “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Duchess.” 

            “Mine as well,” the redhead assured him, before spotting Relena.  “Excuse me a moment.  My Lady?” 

            Relena raised both brows and motioned for Olivia to follow her before heading up the stairs for her loft.  It was unlike the woman to come by unannounced like this – she generally styled more formal, or at least dedicated, affairs.  Without really thinking about it, the princess gestured back to her boys that she was safe but to keep an eye out.  She felt sure enough of the duchess to be alone with her, but that was no excuse to allow an opening for attack.  If not from Olivia, then a discernable pattern could become evident to someone else to take advantage of, and in that case, it would have been Relena herself who invited them in. 

            Olivia, for her part, sighed dramatically as they climbed the stairs.  “You always get the cute ones, Relena.  My brother _never_ hires me any handsome guards.  Always, they’re either over forty or so plain a saint wouldn’t notice them.” 

            _Your brother obviously knows your trouble areas._   Aloud, she noted, “Plain is good, though; never underestimate the value of being able to blend seamlessly into a crowd.” 

            The other woman sighed at her again.  “And as with all other things, there’s an easy way to accomplish a goal, and another that requires more talent but is foolproof all the same.  If Jake didn’t want me to notice or even recognize him, I very much doubt I would.” 

            “Colonel Miller is one of a kind,” Relena agreed, obliquely trying to impress the lack of familiarity between her bodyguard and would-be friend. 

            “Yes…”  She sighed yet again as they reached the loft’s antechamber.  “I should stop pushing him, shouldn’t I?” 

            Relena turned to get a true measure of the girl, and realized that it was subtle, but…  Her lips were pursed in an unusual way for her, her stance was less confident than usual, and she was rubbing the inside of her thumb hard against her palm despite the loose way her hand hung by her waist. 

            For the first time since Relena had reconnected with her, Olivia was showing some sign of being nervous; maybe even anxious. 

            Allowing a smile to touch one corner of her mouth, she admitted, “If you wish to establish a working relationship with him, then yes, you need to stop flirting.”  Moving to palm open her office door, she looked back and added, “He’s a very good friend to have, but if you don’t respect his boundaries, the best you can hope for is tolerance.” 

            “They aren’t very _well-defined_ boundaries,” Olivia complained as she followed her into the loft. 

            “They happen to be _meticulously_ defined, actually,” Relena argued, allowing the door to fall shut and lock automatically.  “He just obfuscates them relentlessly in order to achieve a frame of social banality.”  _He’s far more chameleon than you might imagine, Dontelaine._  

            The redhead huffed and dropped onto a couch, tipping her head back to stare up at the sky.  “I love this room,” she announced. 

            “It’s literally the crowning triumph of the estate,” Relena noted in agreement.  Then, after a moment, “You didn’t really come here to ask advice about my bodyguard, did you?” 

            “I ran into him last week at The Commune and he seemed about ready to skin me,” Olivia defended plaintively.  “Do I truly irritate him _that_ much?” 

            Relena was tempted to just say yes, but that wouldn’t be _entirely_ fair.  Jake found the woman annoying, yes, but by his own admission, most of his upset the other night had been due to how he knew Dorothy would react to the other noblewoman.  On the other hand, it was difficult to find the appropriate middle ground on the subject as well, since he _did_ find her rather obnoxious… almost entirely because of her need to verbally half hang on him.  Her colonel didn’t like clingy behavior unless it came from someone under the age of ten, but…  Come to think of it, she had never seen him do anything more flirtatious than watch a shapely woman very attentively in passing. 

            _No wonder it makes him uncomfortable._   She had no doubts that he knew how to play the part – he was _Jake_ – but that sort of tit for tat didn’t seem to be in his innate emotional set.  Teasing, yes.  Intimately too comfortable, on occasion…  But there was a gap missing in between the two that fit what most people did. 

            “You don’t bother him when you’re not crowding him,” she stated after a few moments. 

            “And how would you define ‘crowding’?” Olivia asked shrewdly, eyes narrowed. 

            “ _That_ ,” Relena noted, unable to help a chuckle, “is something you’re going to have to sort out on your own.” 

            The other woman frowned at her.  “You won’t share, or you don’t know?”  

            “ _Meticulously defined_ , Olivia.”  She raised both her brows as she sat down on the couch across from her.  “Pray tell, what kind of generic boundaries require that kind of attention?” 

            Olivia growled irritably and dropped her head back on the low couch to glower at the sky.  Relena shook her head, debating the absurdity of having had this little conversation at all…  

            …and Dorothy came in from the bathroom, hair pulled over one shoulder, halfway through a fishbone braid. 

            Relena had the sinking feeling that she now knew _exactly_ how cornered Jake had felt the other night. 

            The heiress’ eyes narrowed as she debated her options.  Olivia tilted her head to one side without picking it up off the back of the couch and made the first move.  “Hello,” she greeted neutrally. 

            Dorothy raised one eyebrow before continuing to walk towards Relena’s couch.  “Hello,” she returned.  Sitting down, she asked, “Come to suck up?” 

            Relena briefly allowed her eyes to fall shut as she debated if she had any options herself. 

            “Maybe a little,” their guest agreed.  “It’s hard not to, when you know who has your answers in hand.”  She lifted her head, though she didn’t bother to sit up properly.  “Her advice was worth the effort, though.” 

            Dorothy didn’t look too impressed.  “You probably needed it.” 

            “There hardly would have been any point in seeking it, otherwise,” Olivia returned amicably. 

            The blonde’s eyes narrowed.  “What do you _want_?” 

            “Mm… difficult,” Olivia mused.  “At the moment… an alluring bodyguard for company.” 

            _Oh, God._  

            “You can’t just steal people for yourself,” Dorothy snarled. 

            Sometimes, Dorothy’s possessiveness knew no bounds.  Relena’s mind was scrambling for a way to dismantle that statement without throwing a tantrum over being viewed as a possession; unfortunately, she wasn’t coming up with anything that should be heard from the mouth of anyone older than twelve. 

            “I’m not stealing anything,” Olivia denied, finally sitting up and leaning forward, eyes burning with intent.  “I’m _invading_.” 

            And there was no way at _all_ to work with that.  _No interruptions then,_ she decided resignedly.  _They can just hash it out and get it over with._  

            “Indubitably,” Dorothy sneered, not even hesitating at the other woman’s wording.  “Your efforts have been entirely transparent.” 

            “Intentionally so,” Olivia returned.  “Opacity would have only earned distrust.”  She settled back into her seat, arms spread across the back of the couch, and crossed her legs.  “I am putting down roots, and I am not so foolish to build foundations in anything I am not.  I have no wish to see my efforts crumble down the line for the sake of some small comfort and conceit in the present.” 

            “Manipulative,” Dorothy accused, hands tightening on her braid. 

            “I’ve made absolutely no claims otherwise.”  She waved a hand.  “Transparency, yes?  I wear my heart and intentions on the sleeve, and have allowed my Queen full measure of me, as a true vassal ought.”  She arched one brow.  “I have been judged as a mild nuisance, but hardly wanting, and have presented myself in such a way that I can be molded now to her preference for future applications.”  She smirked.  “I can curb any irritating habits quickly, once I’m made aware.” 

            Relena felt a weight settle in her stomach as the extent of Olivia’s understanding sunk into her very bones.  She had been aware of the implications before now, of course, but she hadn’t realized the other woman viewed their relationship so… clinically.  _Jake isn’t the only one with meticulously maintained social dynamics._  

            “Transparent does not translate to genuine,” Dorothy contended coldly.  “Playing subservient is not your true nature.” 

            “Accurate, which is where the difference between ‘playing subservient’ and offering deference out of respect lies,” Olivia argued.  “I know exactly where I stand; I’m playing at nothing, and I will _not_ stoop beneath the restraints of my pride.  I _am_ a Lady Dontelaine.”  She tossed her head slightly, hair swaying.  “The solution to the problem you’re presenting is careful selection of the one you choose to offer your services to; a balance of respect that will not be tossed aside by either power is essential.”  Her smile was smug, and somewhat mocking.  “Your presence here only argues that this is not only a good choice, but _the_ choice.  There have been no signs of Relena possibly strong-arming you into her service, as her brother might have, and your brilliance in these matters can hardly be denied.  Your defense of her only lends more credit to just how important allegiance to her really is.  So no, Lady Catalonia… I am not going anywhere.  You shall simply have to get used to me.”  Her lips twitched.  “And recall that I will hardly be the last to recognize her as sovereign.  Your time of having her all to yourself was only borrowed.” 

            _‘You have good ideas… I want to see them happen.  I want to make **sure** they happen…’_   _‘You need to calm down and figure out how to handle this because I am **not** going to be the last person to stand behind you and your goals.’_   Jake’s words to her when she first doubted his motives for her, his loyalty.  Relena couldn’t help but smile.  She had been so very flustered, and no small part of it had been her outright attraction to him, for all that the argument had stemmed from self-esteem issues.  He _had_ promised her that she would gain more followers purely on merit, and Olivia was far from the first since Jake, but the way she had phrased it… rung true. 

            Dorothy, meanwhile, seemed to be caught between the fact that Olivia was claiming _her_ as a guiding light, praising her, while at the same time twisting her arguments against her and belittling her.  A flush had risen in her cheeks and her eyes narrowed again as she studied the other noblewoman.  Any hopes Relena might have had that she would either continue the argument or concede Olivia’s points, however, were dashed a moment later. 

            “Fawning, low-bred, spaceborn skank.” 

            If there was ever a moment that Relena might have considered disowning the heiress, this was probably it.  She honestly wanted to crawl under the couch and _die_ of pure mortification. 

            “Infantile, scheming strumpet with no taste,” Olivia returned easily, eyes lighting up with amusement. 

            Dorothy’s lips twisted in a smirk as she relaxed back into the couch.  “Dim-witted third daughter with compensation issues; Mommy never had time for the baby.” 

            “Satan’s little princess, so used to everything coming on a silver platter that she would starve in a stocked kitchen,” Olivia cooed. 

            Dorothy snorted.  “I can run a household perfectly well, thank-you.” 

            “Oh, but you might break a nail, sweetheart.  At least you know how to con someone else into the dirty work.” 

            “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you couldn’t _afford_ such a nice house and requisite staff.” 

            “It’s okay, sweetie, I know you need all the help you can get, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.  Self-sufficiency just isn’t for everyone.” 

            Relena couldn’t help but stare as they continued on.  It wasn’t the fact that they were tossing insults… it was the fact that the tension from before had completely vanished.  With every nasty comment, both women seemed to relax a little… and become more amused. 

            “Are you _certain_ your father was your father?  There isn’t much of a family resemblance, you know.” 

            “Your daddy just made sure to marry a woman who could pass as his sister so he wouldn’t risk that worry.  …Or _was_ she his sister?  That might explain a few things.” 

            “Mm, your spouse needs to have good taste, and it simply can’t be helped if you’re already the best yourself.” 

            “Variety is the spice of life, darling.  And as for taste, there’s simply no accounting for it.  I can’t believe you _paid_ for that blouse.” 

            “Fashion is never sensible, it simply _is_.  It takes talent to make something look good.” 

            “And sensible _with_ flair takes actual creativity.  I make it a point to _set_ the fashion standard instead of following it.  Personal seamstresses exist for a reason.” 

            “Too safe,” Dorothy argued.  “If you refuse to take the chances, you’ll never reap any high-risk rewards, and no one will notice you.” 

            Olivia rolled her eyes, smirking.  “I’m perfectly fine with the fact that my family has never been known for heretical behavior, thank-you.” 

            Dorothy blinked, then outright _cackled_ delightedly.  “Oh, I’d completely _forgotten_ about that!”

            Olivia snickered.  “My great aunt Amelia was convinced she had dreamt that newscast for _days_.” 

            _What?_   On second thought, however, she probably didn’t _want_ to know. 

            “They struck it from the records, I thought.” 

            “Within _hours_ ,” Olivia agreed.  “Human memory is lasting, though, and everyone loves their gossip.” 

            “Scandals are always entertaining,” Dorothy agreed happily. 

            “You heard about what happened with Shawna Timoran, didn’t you?” 

            “Subtlety was never her suit,” Dorothy bemoaned, obviously knowing exactly what the other woman was talking about.  “She should never have even _tried_.” 

            “Not everyone can recognize their weaknesses,” Olivia pointed out. 

            “If she has any sense, this ought to send the message home.  If it doesn’t, she’s a lost cause; it won’t ever sink in.” 

            “It might not, if she’s anything like her brothers.” 

            “Ugh, don’t _remind_ me, they’re _hopeless_ …” 

            Relena’s attention was pulled away from her friends as her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out to check the text. 

            _‘Dani says lunch is ready.  Are you going to come down, or should I bring up a tray?’_

            “Lunch is going on the table,” Relena announced, standing – deciding to ignore the apparent reconciliation between the women for now.  “Shall we?

-

***

-

**L1-X16426**

            “Well, I’d love to help, honestly,” the man insisted earnestly, spreading his hands and shrugging.  “But they weren’t exactly talkative.  As it is, if you’d waited another couple days, you wouldn’t have needed to make the trip.” 

            Milliardo resisted the urge to grind his teeth, or at least sigh.  No one was trying to deny that the troops had been there, at least – though whether that was because they were honest or just not stupid was unclear.  However, the overall consensus was that the army had surrounded the communications centers, thrashed the equipment, held a peaceful occupation for approximately twelve hours, and left.  They had probably restocked and refueled, but no one was owning up to business dealings with the rogues. 

            Again, they weren’t stupid enough to offer up any potentially damning evidence. 

            Frankly, they were being so genial, so easygoing and cooperative, that he was inclined to believe they were all fully in on the scheme.  Unfortunately, however, he couldn’t haul a person in on charges of subterfuge for being _nice_. 

            Naturally, no one seemed to have any idea what direction the interlopers had been headed.  And, as this was the colonies and not Earth, there were no possible bystanders to act as witness to unusual traffic, no physical evidence or trail.  _Only nothingness in the nothingness._   It was a game of shadows up here… and he had the sinking feeling that he had just entered a blindfolded game of tag. 

            He _hated_ space…

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Hey, Lena?” 

            The princess met his eyes readily, though her mouth was twisted in something that was somewhere between a grimace and a smile.  He flicked his eyes to his right, being perfectly subtle, but there was no way she _couldn’t_ know what he was referencing.  She looked that way herself, and downright _bewilderment_ settled into her expression without erasing any of the emotions that had come previous.  “I honestly haven’t the slightest idea,” she told him tiredly. 

            He nodded, watching the two out of the corner of his eye while otherwise focusing on his food, considering the possibilities.  He could have sworn he had heard about a hell of a catfight that the colonel had managed to avert the other night… yet somehow, the two noblewomen were now sitting on the loveseat in the sitting room, chatting like they’d been the best of friends since early childhood.  “Any idea when?” he asked quietly, just… frankly, a bit lost. 

            “A few minutes ago,” was the rueful response. 

            He frowned.  There were a few implications in that.  “I thought you didn’t know?” 

            She turned and scowled at him.  “I was present, but I’m still entirely lost as to the _how_ ,” she groused.  “One moment, they were verbally tearing each other to shreds; the next, they were bosom buddies.  The mechanics are _entirely_ above my pay grade.” 

            He snorted up his mashed potatoes at that and coughed hard, trying not to choke.  He’d never thought he’d hear Relena say _that_ , that was for sure.  Once he’d gotten his airway safely clear of debris, he noted, “If that’s your conclusion, Ma’am, I think I’ll just leave it lie.” 

            “Probably the safest bet,” Relena agreed tiredly.  “Our best bet of comprehension is probably Mailin.” 

            Lin frowned dubiously.  “Even if she’s some super linguist, I don’t think she speaks _that_ language,” he argued.  Shaking his head, he added, “She’s off this morning, though.  She’s jogging the neighborhood with her dog.” 

            Relena raised her brows.  “Are the grounds that boring?” 

            “I think she wants to show off the dog,” Lin decided.  “We’re all used to the giant mop, and she wants fresh audiences to his apparent beauty.”  He shook his head.  “Personally, I don’t get it.” 

            “It’s a dog,” Relena agreed in a lackluster tone. 

            “It looks like a giant _mop_ ,” Lin reiterated.  “I’ve seen some awesome-looking dogs, but I seriously want to find the attachment for the broom handle on his belly, some days.” 

            The blonde woman snickered at the image.  “Don’t tell Mai.” 

            “Why do you think I waited until she was out of the house?” 

            They finished their meal and decided to leave the Romefeller women to their own devices.  Mitchell was only supposed to be there another two days, and seeing as they needed to leave for a dinner in Austria in a few hours, then tomorrow morning they were heading out and not due back for a few days, this was… well, it was the last they’d be seeing of the utterly ridiculous shirts, at least.  He figured the colonel intended to follow them around like old times until his leave was over, but they had an image to maintain.  Yesterday, the damn thing had been bright _pink_. 

            It had also been a very big mistake to comment on this fact.  At all. 

            In any case, there was no reason to leave the man unharassed so long as he was sacrificing his vacation time on them, so, since the princess had stayed up late and gotten up early to get her work done and have a free handful of hours not spent in the car, they went colonel hunting.  After all, where there was one, the other probably wasn’t far.  They were going down the hall, aiming for a shortcut to the courtyard, when they heard Jake’s irritated voice. 

            “Drop it already.” 

            “You’re just-” 

            “I don’t _care_ ,” the other man hissed.  “Sentimental bullshit doesn’t count for _shit_.” 

            “You’re better than this,” Mitchell’s voice snarled back. 

            Lin exchanged a look with Lena, the silent question of whether to interrupt or eavesdrop dismissed almost as soon as it had a chance to rise between them.  They were standing right outside the cinema area, which at this time of day was generally abandoned… evidently making it a good place for private conversation.  In any case, this was almost certainly a continuation of the argument she had had him find the vid record of the other day, and for a wonder, it was in _English_. 

            There wasn’t a chance in hell they were going to ruin their chances to figure it out. 

            “You’re insistent on being willfully _stupid_ ,” Jake growled back.  “I’m not so naïve to think this is going to end without something shattering.  The best case scenario is the only one who burns being _me_ , so forgive me if I’m not _ready_ , asshole.” 

            “You said-” 

            “I know what I said.” 

            Mitchell let out an extremely aggravated noise.  “You’re being a damn diva.  There’s nothing to _lose_ , and everything to gain!” 

            “Keep your voice down,” Jake snapped.  “The only one who thinks there isn’t anything at stake is you; my repercussions are not yours.”  He sighed.  “Dave… I can’t let it happen again.” 

            Mitchell sighed too, though it seemed more exasperated than anything.  “It’s not _going_ to.” 

            “Do me a favor and gamble with your own soul.  Mine’s got a bit of mileage.” 

            For a moment, there was silence.  Then, “You’re so focused on your own fears you’re blinding yourself to the truth.  What am I going to have to do to make you _get_ it?” 

            “…What are you going to do, hm?” 

            A chill swept through Lin’s spine at that tone of voice, and he knew that the innocent question was anything but. 

            Mitchell seemed to realize it too.  “Jake-” 

            “Get out of my house.”  His voice was cold, and eerily calm, without any inflection at all. 

            “I didn’t mean-” 

            “Now.  You won’t play your hand here; I’m not dealing with this shit right now.” 

            Without warning, the door in front of them opened fully, and Colonel Miller strode into the hallway.  Or rather, he started to, then froze as he saw the two of them… and shit, but this couldn’t look like anything but exactly what it was.  He was looking at them very…  levelly.  Lin didn’t dare hazard a glance to his left to see how the princess was handling it; it wasn’t like the man could do anything to her anyway.  The only cognizant thought coming to mind was a repeated shrill of just how _dead_ he was. 

            “Wait,” Mitchell called, evidently trying to finish the conversation.  “Volley-” 

            Something in Jake’s expression… for lack of a better word, _snapped_ , and with perfectly fluid execution he whirled and flung himself at his friend with a snarl. 

            _Oh, **fuck**!_  

            Relena dashed into the cinema room after him, leaving Lin with no choice but to follow, praying she had a _plan_.  The other colonel had responded in kind and the two men were having it out in front of the tiered levels with a kind of ferocity Lin hadn’t seen since Miller attacked his father last September.  The princess led him up two levels before commanding his attention. 

            “You’re only going to have a few seconds, so listen and do this _exactly_ ,” she began. 

-

***

-

            One moment he was riding his rage out and the next, Relena was in front of him, which was jarring at best.  A door slammed, and as he moved forward her eyes narrowed.  “Stand down,” she commanded in a guttural tone.  “He’s been removed and I’ve no intention of letting you chase him.” 

            The full weight of it all bore down on him again as his muscles relaxed and instead started to shudder, the pure frenzy of his wrath fading into tremors.  Now…  _Shit._   Was that it, then?  Was everything- 

            Relena sighed and moved into his personal space, pressing the side of her neck to his and relaxing her weight against him, reaching her right hand up to cradle the side of his head.  “Breathe,” she soothed, resting her left hand on his shoulder before running it down his arm to interlace her fingers with his.  “Whatever this was about, it isn’t worth this.” 

            He took a deep, shuddering breath that was as much physical response to the loss of adrenaline as emotional, and she sighed before tugging him to one side.  “Sit with me,” she urged, leading the way, and he didn’t resist.  Every breath was calming, a faint glimmer of lilies and cool water…  He buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder once they’d settled on the couch and wrapped his free arm around her waist in a tight hug, not willing to let go of the thread of sanity she was offering. 

            His heart thundered dangerously as he damned himself yet again.  If only it had been someone _else_ …  If only _he_ hadn’t…  But he wouldn’t have ever met her, then, never found the girl, found _this_ … 

            It was only fate, or karma maybe, that made it so that when he finally found what he spent his entire life yearning for, he _couldn’t_ just follow through and be happy.  He was just _that_ good at utterly fucking himself over. 

            “Easy,” Relena muttered as he let out a soft keening noise in spite of himself, carding her fingers through her hair.  “Breathe… relax… let it go.”  She let go of his hand to return his one-armed hug and draw circles on his back with her nails.  “It’s not worth the heartache,” she murmured. 

            _If only it were that easy._  

            “Forget for now,” she insisted, almost as if she could read his mind, tipping her head backwards so she could rest the side of it against his, ear to ear.  “Drop it and leave it lie…  you can come back to it later.  Focus on here…” she soothed.  “Focus on me and just drift awhile…” 

            Taking another deep breath of blossoms and rainfall, he tried to just not think. 

            “Just breathe…” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s Townhouse**

            “Colonel?  _Scheisse_ …  Come in, come in…”  Tristan stepped back and gestured the same, considering for a moment before deciding to lead him towards the living room by the kitchen.  There was blood smeared across his face, and with the way he was moving, that was only the bare edge of it.  “What happened?  Do you need me to call Ffion?” 

            “I haven’t catalogued anything yet, so that may not be necessary,” the man groused in a way that only the extremely exhausted or the deeply in pain can manage.  “At the same time, the gesture would be greatly appreciated.  I’m not entirely sure driving was a good idea, but I don’t remember blacking out, so I’m at least mostly sure I’m not concussed.” 

            “That sounds dubious,” Tristan noted as he strode ahead of him into the room to grab an afghan or two that he was sure Catalonia wouldn’t remember let alone miss if they became bloody, and tossed them on the woman’s least favored piece of furniture, just incase.  Lindsay and BJ looked up from their places at the stove and breakfast bar, curious, then incredulous as Colonel Mitchell stumbled in after him. 

            “Call Ffion,” BJ muttered quickly as he stood and made his way over to the recliner Tristan was tucking blankets into, watching their houseguest.  “What happened?” 

            Mitchell snorted miserably as he half-collapsed into the chair.  “I messed up.” 

            “ _Allerdings,_ ” BJ returned sarcastically.  “Do we get more detail than that?” 

            “Maybe a little,” Mitchell seemed to almost laugh out.  “I haven’t finished deciding yet.” 

            Tristan frowned.  Laughter wasn’t exactly…  “I think he might be hysterical,” he muttered to his leader. 

            Mitchell, evidently, heard him, and half choked out another laugh.  “Maybe a little,” he agreed. 

            BJ sighed, resisting the urge to throw up his hands.  “What hurts, then?” 

            “Quite possibly… everything.” 

            It was Tristan’s turn to sigh.  “Off with the coat, then, let’s see the damage.  How’s your breathing?” 

            He didn’t have much formal training, but he could handle basic shit, and make assessments, at least for when their paramedic friend arrived.  The more bruises and contusions he found, though… after he was fairly sure that there was a break in the man’s upper arm he couldn’t help but shake his head.  He knew how well Mitchell could fight; he’d shown him and Alexis a few things when time allowed for it.  “I don’t think I want to see the other guys,” he decided. 

            This time, the colonel _did_ laugh outright hysterically.  “Don’t jump to conclusions, now…” 

            His stomach sank.  “You lost?” 

            “Utterly.  Then I got rescued by a damsel in distress.” 

            BJ gave him an incredulous look.  “A damsel.” 

            “Just in time too,” Mitchell mused carelessly.  “I think my ribs would have given out in another ten seconds.”  He dropped his head back.  “God help me, I’m not even sure I bruised him…” 

            The implications there were upsetting.  “You’re saying this was from one guy?” Tristan asked incredulously.  At the lack of denial – hell, even another giggle as confirmation – he shook his head.  “What the _fuck_ , man?” 

            “I lost the initiative,” he complained.  “Take too many hits before you have a chance to send one back, and you’re too just too damn slow to catch up.”  He let out an explosive sigh.  “Jake’s always made me look slow.” 

            Tristan just stared at him, the pieces fitting together with a nasty sort of click.  Mitchell, considering his position and reputation, and what they’d outright seen, was pretty up there in skill, and the only ‘Jake’ he might be referencing that easily would be the princess’ bodyguard, Colonel Jake Miller… supposedly his best friend.  The whole thing just sounded… ugly. 

            On the bright side, it made a lot more sense why everyone seemed to be so at ease on those occasions when Relena went about with only Miller to guard her safety?  _It explains the hysteria too…  Shit._  

            “What _happened_?” he demanded, feeling even more lost for knowing more. 

            Mitchell just closed his eyes.  “Say the devil’s name, and he appears,” he announced cryptically.  “It’s my own damn fault…  I just wasn’t expecting it, and I really should have.” 

            “You’re supposed to expect your best friend to beat the shit out of you?” Tristan half-shouted. 

            His chuckle was considerably weaker and darker than the previous.  “Everyone has a breaking point.”  Then, another hysterical sort of giggle.  “Shit, all in maybe thirty seconds… man’s nothing if not efficient…” 

            There was nothing worth saying to that. 

-

***

-

**July 9 th 198 – Thursday – South Africa**

            Odin was awesome; this was a very firmly established fact in her brain.  He took the definition of ‘dedicated’ to whole new levels, he was so smart he came across as a dummy half the time, and he had a spooky way of figuring stuff out on a near expert level even if he’d only been introduced to it ten minutes ago.  Marlé never had any doubts that she had chosen herself a very _good_ role model, for all that it had more or less been a chance meeting and absolute dependence that led to it. 

            What she hadn’t ever calculated into this, however, was just how _creative_ he could get when the mood struck him.  Really, it shouldn’t be news, what with exactly how he’d _gotten_ the ship they’d used to drop Lucrezia’s gundam care package, or honestly, the ways he came up with to teach her stuff.  _But…_  

            Odin might be spooky when he decided to be thorough about something… but he was officially _crazy_ when he decided to be thorough _and_ random. 

            _‘mom?’_ she texted, trying to sort her feelings out about this one.  She couldn’t exactly deny the genius of it, and it was fantastically cool on some level…  but _suuuuper_ creepy too, and… 

            _‘What is it, baby?’_  

            She started trying to decide how to type this out, tried, erased it, and tried again.  She looked it over one more time before sending it, trying to make up her mind. 

            _‘i just crawled under someone’s porch and stole something buried almost in the foundation that i’m pretty sure the people living there had no idea existed’_  

            She looked at it miserably for a moment before deleting it; that sounded way more criminal than it was.  _It can’t be stealing when Odin was the one who’d put it there over three years ago, right?_   They hadn’t even known it was there.  He’d just… borrowed their layout.  He’d trespassed, but he hadn’t broken or upset anything… 

            Her mom was texting again.  _‘Is everything okay?’_  

            She stared at her screen, then considered the very dirty ammo tin by her feet that had a little hard drive duct taped to one side of the inside of it, to keep it from rattling around.  It wasn’t like anything was wrong… she was pretty sure they hadn’t done anything mean to innocent people.  It wasn’t like the thing had been dangerous or anything… it just… had a really _unique_ storage space. 

            Inspiration struck, and she grinned before carefully typing it out. 

            _‘odin has a really interesting take on geocaching’_  

-

***

-

**Graz, Austria – Night**

            Russel Blomberg rested one shoulder against the wall, considering the crowd this evening as he sipped at his drink.  Most of his day had already been burned away with work, and while he did enjoy the opportunities these little social affairs brought about, said possibilities could only blossom if you prepared the ground ahead of time, so to speak.  Politics was a constantly shifting game, and at times, it could be difficult to simply keep both feet under yourself, let alone excel.  Mood was an important dynamic before any sort of deal could take place, and the mood often depended heavily on exactly who was present… which, of course, made observation before beginning a must. 

            Vandusen was someone to avoid, but his wife and daughter were both present and had him wrapped around their little fingers to keep them entertained, so it shouldn’t be difficult.  Asbury too, and Pinion, Lindstrom, Boutelle, Macklin…  Russel actually grimaced.  _Not going to be making much progress tonight, then,_ he decided.  Too much room for interference… it wouldn’t be worthwhile. 

            _Oh well._   He sipped from his glass.  _I could use a break from work, after all._   He focused on the women.  There was a grouping over by the refreshments table, and he took care to see who he could identify, and who he would need to ask about… not knowing was _not_ an intelligent option.  Evelyn and Faith, Daphne, Kirstin, Laverne, Vivian, Tyerra, Olivia, Alina, Kelsey, Dorothy…  

            All either too young or already married… or in the last case, a horrific idea altogether, no matter how much power her husband might gain.  No one _sane_ tried to catch a tiger by the toe.  

            “Daydreaming?”

            Russel blinked at Dustin before offering him a wry smile.  “It’s been a long day.” 

            “I can drink to that,” the other man agreed, lifting his own glass in a lazy cheer before bringing it back to his mouth.  “I’m intent on minding my own business tonight, but I’m debating if asking Fredalynne to dance with me counts.” 

            “I would imagine, considering,” Russel noted dryly.  The younger of the Loy Dukes always doted on Garrett’s daughter; it was frankly a surprise to him that a betrothal had not yet been announced.  “Why the reserve?” 

            Dustin’s chuckle was on the disbelieving side.  “You didn’t hear about what the princess got put through this morning, did you?” 

            Russel frowned.  Honestly, he hadn’t considered the Peacecraft girl’s presence overmuch; despite her reputation, she had made out for a rather weak start; presumably because immediately after her appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs last week, her brother had left for the colonies.  Putting her in the seat of Minister was a transparent power play, but it lost its effectiveness when the puppet master left the stage as well.  She had gotten a few new policies put through in the week since her appointment without any resistance and they had gone into effect this morning, but that had as much to do with their lack of practicality as well as the avid adoration the girl could attract with her standing. 

            Anyone could write and get a law put through if they didn’t change any relevant facts of commerce with it and they belonged to a family that so many were looking to get favors for fawning over.  “I’m familiar with the work, but I can’t imagine what you’re referring to,” he noted, debating exactly how random Dustin was feeling… and how inebriated, considering his flush. 

            “The rerouting of border trade.” 

            He considered, trying to find the problem.  In the end, the new commerce law made the import/export business slightly more organized, as certain supplies had to pass through specified routes when crossing borders between the countries.  The argument for the change had been compelling enough, he supposed; if they specialized the routes, trade was forced through more areas which hopefully would revive the economy somewhat in terms of jobs and traffic.  It would lower the prices on a handful of staple imports as they would not have to travel as far before dispersal, and would require more attentive care, as the strict international shipping routes instead became practically a traveling caravan.  The impetus had been lowering the tariffs somewhat as well… 

            _I suppose if it works exactly as planned, it will increase morale in the general populace._   He remembered thinking, however, that once the numbers were crunched, the differences of cost to benefit ratio between the two systems was negligible… and that was if she even managed to successfully enforce the ruling.  It was a fancy way of making yourself look productive, while really it rang of a woman’s obsessive need to categorize and label everything while presenting herself as complicated. 

            “She’s satisfying her obsessive compulsive tendencies,” he pointed out dryly.  “Little more.” 

            Dustin snorted into his glass.  “What she did is put Donovan and Bryant’s balls in a vice and smile sweetly as she offered to turn the crank for them.  She instated a social services program through RLTT in over a month ago that regulates commerce on the local level – like a grocer’s branch of her Militia.  It’s due to start running in ten days from now, which is why no one had heard about it, but Marquise’s signature is already on it.  Any goods that come through those checkpoints have to be evaluated before sales can run in that county, and she has the manpower to enforce it.  If only certain goods are allowed through certain cities a flag goes up if a single thing is out of place, and it makes it so any idiot can run an inspection; in other words she _can_ pull off that level of constant inspection without doing much to slow down the process on distribution.” 

            _Nearly constant inspections…_   That would put an effective end to the relatively rampant embezzling and black market dealings that were the majority of Romefeller’s bread and butter…  and, as Dustin had already pointed out, effectively ruin the Pommier and Reinhoel boys’ forced labor trade.  “Do they have time to clean up?” he asked quietly.  Don and Bryant were good customers of his. 

            “If they’re exceedingly lucky, willing to take on a good amount of debt, and can survive the backlash of their middle management when they try to shut down, there’s a _chance_ ,” Dustin snorted.  “Bryant was bragging yesterday about having nearly eight hundred Kazakhstan refugees broken in and ready to be shipped to the fields and mines.  The last I knew, he had them tucked away near Balti, but the new laws are in action in Ukraine as of tomorrow, and Hungary in five days.  Not moving on Moldova immediately is a mercy act, but I don’t think they can make it anyway.  They were always careful enough before that they moved slowly, and if they _are_ too obvious, the normal authorities might pick up on it.”  He shook his head.  “No, they’re damned, and I’m going to keep my nose clean from here.  That was a little too well thought out and executed for my taste.  I would advise you to cut your ties to those two; I get the sense that Darlian’s going hunting, and I’d hate to see who she takes as a trophy next.” 

            Russel frowned as Dustin took his leave and headed over to the Melendy girl he was courting, considering.  Of course he was cutting ties to the two who had gotten themselves caught; he had known, from the beginning that he would if ever there was even a hint of a noose around either man’s head.  No, his concern was exactly how long the plans leading to this motion had been in place… because that would give him an idea for how far-reaching the freshly minted Minister’s intelligence network was. 

            _To have arranged it all so neatly…  It’s almost as if Peacecraft **intended** to disgrace himself in order to pass power to his unassuming sister._   But no, he _knew_ Peacecraft too well for that.  The man had too much pride for that kind of tactic, and he had nearly declared a new war with his actions in Sudan. 

            He remembered hearing a rumor that Peacecraft had failed to realize that the princess was no longer living in the room next to him for over a month.  He had dismissed it as ridiculous, yet another show being put on between the two in order to manipulate Romefeller… any yet…  

            “Ah, good evening, Chancellor Blomberg.  I trust you are enjoying yourself?” 

            The subject of his thoughts had appeared before him, smiling genially and looking every inch the high-class noblewoman she was in a sky blue evening gown that effectively showed off her body’s assets, her hair twisted in an intricate pattern at the back of her head. 

            He smiled back.  “I am happy to enjoy the evening’s respite, Princess Peacecraft.  I thank you for the opportunity.” 

            “Darlian-Peacecraft, please,” she corrected firmly.  “And I would hardly say that all this is due to me.”  Her smile was far more winsome this time, instead of simply nice.  “I recall receiving an invitation, after all.  And I could hardly pass up the opportunity of a frivolous evening, with how busy my life has been of late.” 

            “Ah, but the mere presence of your company makes all the difference, my dear,” he offered magnanimously.  “I look forward to seeing more of you, now that you’re a Minister.” 

            “It promises to be a very taxing occupation, I’m afraid,” the princess returned cheerfully.  “I believe it will be all the more rewarding for it, however.”  She hid a soft chuckle behind a gloved hand.  “You should expect to find me at just as many of these events in proportion, I expect, to ease off the tension; it’s so nice to see everyone getting along despite the words exchanged over politics in daylight.”  She shook her head.  “I’ve been all too reclusive, these past few years; it’s past time I re-entered the social scene, I think.” 

            “I certainly couldn’t disagree,” Russel returned amicably, even while he really hoped she was overstating.  Her attendance certainly _did_ change the mood at this sort of thing, and that could, in turn, make his life difficult.  She was too young, too naïve, to be worth much in his business – idealism had a habit of obstructing capitalism.  “Might I say that you look fantastic, tonight?”  Even if she was an obstacle, he could handle a blockade; enemies were to be avoided at all costs, however, and naïve or not, this young woman could cause him quite a lot of trouble if she had the inclination. 

            She laughed delightedly at that, sweeping her skirt with one hand and offering him a slight dip of a curtsy.  “The thought is appreciated, Chancellor, I assure you.”  She winked.  “After all, I did not spend so much time getting ready to be ignored.”  Bringing her glass to her mouth again, she paused and watched him for a moment over the rim before smirking gently.  “I imagine flattery opens many doors that might remain stuck fast, in your trade.” 

            Russel felt his throat dry as she sipped at her champagne, analyzing _exactly_ what that comment might infer.  It was a truth for politics, and for a great deal of his known work, yes…  She was stating an easy fact; it was well known that he wasn’t above brownnosing to keep himself in good graces.  Honey caught more flies than vinegar, and he lived firmly by that motto.  But at the same time, her previously innocent gaze was almost mocking now, as if they shared a secret that she found terribly amusing…  And what Dustin had just finished telling him about Don and Bryant suddenly haunted his thoughts. 

            _Please, let her only be fishing._  

            “I’ve yet to meet a man who would prefer a rude partner to a genial one,” he returned carefully – hopefully without too much hesitation.  “A courteous manner will take you far in this world, Princess.” 

            “Oh, to be sure, Chancellor.  So many fail to realize how harassing a person ought to be a last resort; no one likes a bully, after all.  Far better to simply suggest cooperation is in a partner’s best interest, no?”  Her smile turned coy.  “I am very impressed by your network of contacts, sir.  I should love the opportunity to ask your advice about them in the future.” 

            He resisted the urge to lick his lips, cold dread dripping down his spine even as surprise tried to race up it.  He knew himself well enough to realize it was a miracle he had not begun to tremble at the onslaught of unexpected emotions just yet.  “I look forward to conducting business with you in the future, then,” he murmured, choosing his words with enough care that he should not give away any more information than she might already have, even while extending a pleasantly vague offer.  If she was actually innocent of his newfound suspicions, she would accept wholeheartedly, but if- 

            “Oh, we will just have to see,” she returned almost indifferently.  “There is so little time in the day, after all, and of course, more than one route to any goal.  Curiosity is one thing, and necessity another, but it cannot be denied that you know Romefeller better than most.” 

            He nodded slightly to show he understood, even as his hands began to shake.  She had no need for his services, idealistic woman as she was, but she evidently knew just how a sizable portion of the Romefeller gentry liked to filter dirty money through.  _Damn and **damn**._   He wouldn’t have even dreamed this might be a concern, just ten minutes ago.  “Of course.”  Quickly, he wet his throat with a sip from his glass, made a few calculations, and decided on the safest course.  “Naturally, my lady, I am at your service, should you wish it.” 

            “Naturally,” she agreed breezily.  “I appreciate the concession, Chancellor.”  Raising her glass in a cheer, she began to move away.  “I will be in touch.” 

            “I look forward to it,” he answered automatically, even as he turned to find some semblance of privacy.  He needed to gather his nerves… and decide on exactly what piece the princess _was_ on the board.  His dismissal of her as a pawn was unforgivably erroneous. 

-

***

-

**July 12 th 198 – Sunday – Strasbourg, Germany**

            “If you don’t go now, you might miss your train.” 

            Marlé made a face and shrugged.  “There’s another one in three hours if I do.”  She shifted her pack, then gave in and just asked.  “I thought we were treasure hunting; what’s up now?”  He’d asked her if she was cool with going back to Amsterdam again sorta out of the blue, and then when he announced he wasn’t coming along, it was pretty obvious he was up to something.  Taking a deep breath and focusing on _not_ clenching her jaw, she asked, “Did Lucrezia call?” 

            Odin shook his head, though he didn’t look up from the pack he was reorganizing.  “I need to hit a few places that are too isolated to get to without a car.  Lucrezia has one.” 

            …She was getting ditched again, then.  Outright _ditched_ , not shuffled around a bit because he was about to do something crazy dangerous like he sometimes did. 

            _This is just **stupid**._  

            “How long do you figure you’ll be?” she asked sullenly, shifting the weight of her backpack and thinking. 

            “Not sure.  Somewhere between three days and eight, probably.”  He looked up at her and gave her a resigned sort of smile.  “I’ll stay in touch this time.” 

            She gave him an irritated look anyway – she knew she couldn’t hide it, and he already expected it anyhow.  She seriously wanted to demand if it was honestly the end of the world if she _met_ any of his friends, but… Well, first of all, keeping her out of it wasn’t actually his idea – he was doing what her mom had told him to.  And second… that would be giving it away. 

            _Hm._

            She sighed and shook her head.  “Whatever.”  Picking up her duffel, she gave him a lazy sort of wave before turning away.  “I’ll talk to you later.” 

            If she was going to do this, she had to work out a few details before he skipped town. 

-

***

-

**Rome, Italy**

            **_“Flight 527 for MO-28946 is now ready for boarding.  If you are a passenger for flight 527, please report to gate nine for processing.”_**

            Quatre focused on Cory, and couldn’t help but smile when he saw just how he was _still_ absolutely focused on his phone, tapping away at the keys.  Before they’d parted ways with Heero – Odin, he needed to remember that it was Odin now – Marlé had insisted on a phone like she and Odin kept; which had seemed intelligent enough, so long as precautions were kept.  Fast, easy communication was too vital to pass up, and the operating system Marlé had designed was cleverly just what they needed. 

            While Quatre was appreciative, however, Cory was absolutely… _taken_.

            The boy was nursing an altogether adorable crush.  _I now understand exactly why my sisters saw fit to tease me endlessly on the subject of Alicia Mae when I was ten._  He wasn’t going to put the boy through it, but the temptation was there all the same.  At any rate, Cory was far subtler than he himself had been – though how much of that was age and personality was debatable. 

            “Time to go,” he muttered after a moment, downing the last of his tea and standing.  They’d been on the planet long enough.  Really, he never would have imagined he _could_ leave space for so long as he had.  The last time he’d been off world was _Libra_ , and, well…  

            _Libra_ was a lifetime ago, and not a pleasant memory in any case. 

            Going back… it ought to have felt good, like going home, but… it didn’t.  Dread was pooling in his gut… 

            For all that he wanted to reconnect with the world and get back on track… he wasn’t any more ready to talk to his sisters than he was the Maguanacs. 

 

-

_“They’re working with Lucrezia now, backing her like they used to support you.  They’ve been anxious for news about you, though.”_

_Quatre felt his stomach twist.  “Have you mentioned this reunion to them yet?”_

_Heero shook his head.  “No.  Should I?”_

_Acceptance, a calm lake of… from Heero, it was probably a whole lake of ‘not my business so I’m not going to get bothered about it’.  God, if that didn’t take the edge off the situation…  He’d **missed** Heero.  “No... not just yet.  Maybe after a little while, but I’ll probably just handle it myself.”  The idea honestly made him want to throw up, but he couldn’t run for the rest of his life; he refused.  _

_He wanted a cigarette._

_Instead he took a deep breath and focused on that calm center his friend was acting as.  He was glad that the insular group of fighters had taken to someone else in his absence; Rashid anchored them, but only just.  Rashid was the center they worked around, easily the father figure that reminded them – sometimes forcibly – that they were family, but he lacked drive.  Without an outside influence, the Maguanacs ceased to be a fighting force, and with the world as it was, they **needed** to stay in the game.  _

_The specifics of what he had said, though…  “Lucrezia?”  She’d always insisted on Noin._

_Amusement, elation, something…belonging?  Inclusiveness?  Not quite loyalty, at least…  Quatre blinked at the sudden burst as Heero grinned, and the emotions faded down to ripples.  “It **is** her name.”  There was something impish about his expression.  _

_Quatre smiled as well, bemused but happy his friend felt that good about something.  Really, though, if she had been working with Auda and Ahmad and the others… they practically had an anathema against last names.  They frankly might have refused to call her anything but ‘Lady Lucrezia’ until she caved.  Unrepentant cheerfulness was, oddly enough, quite a force to be reckoned with._

-

 

            No…  He didn’t want to see them just yet.  He wasn’t ready for the judgment he would face over his time in Cambyses, not when it would still be just as raw in their minds as his own.  In a few more weeks, maybe a couple months, they would have had enough time to form opinions and move on, and he would… face whatever standpoint they had settled on at that point. 

            Hopefully by then, he’d have worked out his own opinion as well.  That would go a long way towards… towards _everything_ , really.  _For now, though…_  He probably needed a little more time, and to seek out the sisters who either wouldn’t ask or wouldn’t judge.  It had been rash to simply approach the geographical closest; it was truthfully just as well that she hadn’t been home. 

            Hollee…  Camille.  Tricia, once he was settled enough in himself; she wouldn’t abide weakness in him, for all that she wouldn’t hold him to any of the things he had done in the past.  Above all, Tamelia…  If Tamelia could accept him, then he doubted anything else could truly threaten his self-worth.  And seeing as Tamelia had accepted the horrors he had committed with Wing Zero, then surely she could come to terms with what had happened in the desert. 

            According to the news, there were more like his squadron than he had hoped to believe, though none so organized.  They were being painted as victims… 

            …They had been, hadn’t they?  They had been a horrible number of other things too, but… if they could be victims… 

            That would make life so much simpler.  He wasn’t going to think about it until public opinion became a little clearer, though – he didn’t trust his own instincts on the matter without at least some backing, and it didn’t help that his emotions were entirely contradictory on the subject. 

            So for now, he was going to seek out his old sources, see what was left of Instructor H’s network, and make his way out to see Tamelia.  Seeing as even a direct trip took almost two weeks from his home colony, his timetable should work out more or less the way he wanted anyhow. 

-

***

-

**July 13 th 198 –Monday – Near Erfurt, Germany**

            The situation, admittedly…  could have gone considerably better.  Lucrezia grit her teeth as she calculated exactly how much ammo she had on her… and wished, again, that she hadn’t left the big guns in the trunk.  The terrain was shit for a firefight, there just wasn’t enough good cover… and there was no way either she or Xu could get to Hilde without some decent cover fire. 

            Her phone vibrated and she considered for a moment before making a damn wish and fishing it out of her shirt.  She wasn’t in immediate danger, and if anyone could have had better timing… 

            She grinned and double-tapped the text to call the number. 

            _“Lu?”_

            “See that building to the east?  Do me a favor and get up there fast with some heavy artillery.” 

            _“There’s still a key in the undercarriage?”_

            “Yep.”  She loved how he didn’t waste time; she could hear him dropping to the ground to reach under her little sedan for the thing. 

            _“Anything in particular you’d recommend?”_

            “Mm, whatever you’re comfortable with.  You’ll want a full auto and something with a scope.” 

            There was a long moment of silence before she heard a _thunk_ that was probably the trunk shutting.  _“Got it.  Locations?”_  

            “Hold on.”  She hit mute and flicked her radio earpiece off manual.  “Give me an update, people.” 

-

***

-

            _The next time we visit any damn friends of Schbeiker’s,_ Xu decided, _I’m bringing grenades._  

            _“You’re covered, go,”_ muttered Noin’s voice in his ear. 

            He flung himself into the open as he heard a spray of automatic fire start, tuning out the noise as he focused on the decrepit building Hilde was being held in and ran as fast as he could. 

            They hadn’t gotten the full story on what the fuck went wrong yet, but he honestly didn’t care about the details just now.  Everything he _needed_ to know was pretty obvious: they were hostile, and his partner _really_ needed him about five minutes ago.  She wasn’t dead – her conversation was volatile as hell, and she was including all their danger words and phrases in her speech patterns like there was no tomorrow. 

            Schbeiker might be a psychotic bitch, but she was still his partner. 

-

***

-

            Hilde let out a shuddering breath as she slammed a heel into the man’s hand and sent his gun skittering off to one side.  Noin was coming out of the shadows now – gun still at the ready, eyes analyzing everything.  “She’s secure,” she muttered after a moment.  Hilde ignored the oddity of hearing the woman’s voice both actively and deep in one ear.  “Clear the rest of the building, Chang.”  She tapped the earpiece in her left ear twice as her eyes flicked clinically over Hilde.  “Are you injured?” 

            “Only enough to hurt,” she grumbled, biting back the urge to screech over the whole damn situation.  This was _her_ contact, damn it… 

            “You followed all the right cues,” her general told her as she swept the room.  “You didn’t do anything wrong, so don’t beat yourself up about it.  You can’t see everything coming.”  She shook her head as she finished and holstered her gun.  “They knew what they were doing and played it just right, is all.”  She tapped at the earpiece in her right ear.  “We’re good.  Handle any stragglers we flush out.”  Another tap, and then a double tap at the other ear.  “Chang, do _not_ exit the building without my say so unless you want a bullet to the head.” 

            Hilde frowned as Xu acknowledged the order.  “Ma’am?”  The second earpiece was the one that linked up with her _cell phone_. 

            “Later, Schbeiker,” the older woman dismissed.  “Help me clear this area.” 

            _“I’ve got nothing,”_ Xu’s voice muttered after a minute.  _“Clear.”_  

            “We’re downstairs,” came Noin’s dual-tone voice.  “Come help sort through their crap, huh?” 

            _“Roger.”_

            They all froze as the sound of a shot from a high-powered rifle practically reverberated through the building. 

            _“Ma’am?”_ Xu demanded. 

            “Nothing to worry about, Chang.  Come on down; just don’t go outside.” 

            Between the three of them, they confirmed that everyone was either dead or had vacated the premises pretty quickly, and Hilde turned to see what had been left behind in terms of information while Xutao dug around for weaponry.  Noin tapped her right earpiece again.  “You all clear out there?”  She paused, listening – and ignoring both her and Xu’s eyes watching her – before nodding a little to herself.  “Sounds good to me.  See you in a minute.” 

            “Who’s our backup?” Hilde demanded as the other woman disconnected the line and pulled all the tech off her ears.  She knew for a _fact_ that no one else had been anywhere nearby – she’d had a solid ten minutes to consider and trash any ideas about getting help in the shitstorm she’d led them into. 

            Xu answered before Noin, though.  “Odin, probably.” 

            “You’re a good kid, Xu,” Noin informed him happily as she knelt next to one of the bodies on the floor and began rifling through his pockets.  “Right in one; he texted when he found the car and heard gunfire.”  She sucked in a breath.  “Hilde, please tell me you don’t recognize this one…” 

            “I didn’t recognize almost _any_ of them,” Hilde snapped.  “Just one guy, and he was their damn gofer, not the people I usually talk to.”  By the time she’d realized these _weren’t_ the informants she’d been talking to for almost a year now, it’d been way too late to get back out of the building unless she wanted to do it full of holes.  “Why?” 

            “This was a sting,” the general explained, tossing a badge at her… a goddamn Regime military ID.  _Shit._  

            She’d never been so glad she played by Noin’s rules on what you did and didn’t let your sources know, instead of what she wanted to do.  If they’d survived the raid the Regime must have run on them some point before this, they wouldn’t be able to tell anyone much. 

            A door opened a ways away.  “Noin?” 

            “Over here!” 

            “I want this gun,” he called back

            The general laughed.  “If you’re talking about the rifle, then it’s a definite _no_.  That’s one of my favorite pieces.” 

            “Makes sense.”  He came into the room shaking his head and considering the weapon.  “I haven’t had anything this nice since I was…” he frowned.  “Seven or eight.” 

            Noin snorted as she stood and took it from him, even as Hilde’s brain got stuck on an eight-year-old having access to a military grade sniper rifle.  “Mine.  And I’m not going to bother going into how messed up that sounded.” 

            “My father had an unorthodox priority set,” the man explained easily, cheerfully, even, as he turned to consider her and Xu… and she froze. 

            The blonde hair was a little disconcerting, but his face really hadn’t changed much.  “ _Heero_?” 

            He raised both brows, lips twitching into a smirk.  “ _Hilde_?” 

            She flushed, but didn’t bother trying to defend herself against the sarcastic response.  Heero fuckin’ Yuy was standing next to her! 

            “Odin, huh?” Xu asked quietly. 

            Again, his lips twitched.  “Yeah.  Shoe something, wasn’t it?” 

            “Xu works,” he noted, his slight lilt on the enunciation hint enough. 

            Heero just smirked at him.  “You’re still slow.”  Shifting the strap on his shoulder, he held up one of their better submachine guns.  “Do you want me to hold onto this until we get back to the car?” 

            “If you would,” Noin muttered distractedly as she went back to examining their attackers.  “Look at their computers too, huh?” 

            Noin, of course, never had a problem with putting someone right to work.  Heero didn’t even bat an eye at it though; he just settled the gun’s shoulder strap and moved for the desk Hilde was pawing through. 

            If she’d had any idea that _Heero_ of all people was going to come join them on their fun little field trip – the general’s words, not hers – then she might have- 

            _Odin._   _Aw shit, seriously?_   No wonder the general had been laughing at her earlier. 

            “Where the hell did you get _Odin_ from?” she demanded. 

            “The usual place, I’d imagine,” he answered in an absent monotone. 

            “What?” 

            Xutao snorted.  “Yeah, Ma’am – where’d _you_ get _Lucrezia_?” 

            The woman hummed out an amused noise.  “I’d like to know what genius thought of Xutao, personally.” 

            …Her ears were burning so hot they had to be bloody _crimson_ by now. 

            “It was my dad’s name.  Nice and boring,” Xu pointed out happily.  “I think my mom was too doped up to come up with something original.  I wasn’t even the oldest son.” 

            “Is that what that means?” Odin asked curiously. 

            “Probably not, but it’s one theory,” Noin noted with a chuckle. 

            Hilde just grumbled under her breath and focused on what paperwork she could find.  It was past time to bow out; she was only digging a deeper hole from here anyway.

-

***

-

**Tivoli, Italy**

            It was nice to be out of the house just as a regular person instead of a princess.  She generally didn’t mind her position, really… but it was a breath of fresh air all the same. 

            Jake had asked her if she could take the time to do this with him… and she had told him to fit it into her schedule with priority.  Especially after what had happened with David.  Whatever this was about, it was important to him, and might help level him back out.  Dorothy had admitted that something serious had happened emotionally with him the night they went out, but beyond the fact that she was considering the implications, had left it at that.  Relena hadn’t pried – if Dorothy didn’t want to tell you something, she wouldn’t, and the princess trusted her friend’s judgment. 

            And despite the incident the other day, she trusted Jake’s too.  She still wished she knew the full story, but she wasn’t so naïve as to not recognize a lost temper for what it was.  She’d blown her top with Milliardo just the other week, and while that hadn’t gone so terribly, she was a far less… _physical_ person than her best friend. 

            Mai, Lin, and Vaughn had come along today, though they were only too happy to follow Jake’s order of ‘get lost for a few hours’ after they dropped them off in the main of the city.  After hearing that the princess was going incognito for the day – or at least for a few hours – Major Marakesh had happily insisted the Relena wear her new jeans and a scoop neck t-shirt that left the necklace Jake had given her after their first trip to Munich visible for once.  Relena, in turn, had let the older woman lead her along practically by the hand as she pulled her hair back into a low tail with clips for flyaways, then completed the ensemble with a newsboy cap.  She had other clothes – nicer, more official-looking ones – in the car so they could get her back to work without leaving Italy first…  But really, she suspected this was just simple enough to work.  She wondered, briefly, if she could get away with this kind of thing more often… or if frequency would ruin the nature of the camouflage all by itself. 

            They had moved from the city center to the suburbs now, and were currently in a distinctly upper middle class neighborhood… stopping in front of a house no different from those of the last few blocks. 

            She had resolved to not ask questions or pester her friend… but not for the first time, she wondered exactly what that they were doing.  Considering the house – debating the sheer normalcy of it – it took a moment to realize that the driver’s side door had yet to open.  She looked back to Jake and frowned in concern at the thousand yard stare he was directing through her window. 

            Belatedly, she recalled her shock at Jack Miller’s completely mundane nature, and reminded herself how really, it was the bizarre that her friend was at home with.  Dangerous, odd, downright psychotic, and he would take it entirely in stride.  Estranged fathers and people stable enough to live in an old family suburb like this?  She resisted the urge to smile.  _Terrifying._  

            “Jake?” she asked quietly, debating if she ought to suggest they simply leave.  She doubted it would be well received – he could have come up with countless excuses to avoid this if he had wanted to, especially considering the fact that she _still_ had no idea what they were doing – but it would get him moving again. 

            He let out an explosive sigh and tossed her a smile that was somehow sardonic, disgruntled, but sheepish all at the same time.  “I’ve been avoiding this for years,” he admitted.  Shaking his head and gesturing at the house, he added, “And Des has been letting me, but that doesn’t make me not feel like an ass.”  He snorted.  “And while the man has the patience and conviction of a _god_ , he also has the humor of one.” 

            Relena raised her brows.  _That… is an interesting description._   She debated her words for a moment before settling on a dry, “You’re afraid to go in because you might be teased?” 

            He made a disgusted noise and threw his door open, and Relena grinned before following suit.  Almost immediately, she was hit with the smell of hot fresh bread, what could only be some sort of stew, and… peanut butter?  She almost laughed at that mix, before deciding that if it smelled _this_ good, the cook must be making separate dishes… or if that _wasn’t_ the case, it smelled wonderful enough to try anyhow. 

            Jake caught her expression and laughed as he locked the doors and gestured for her to follow him to the front door… which was open, oddly.  “Looks like Cassie’s playing gourmet again.” 

            “I doubt there’s much ‘playing’ involved,” Relena argued primly, all too happy to follow her nose. 

            The colonel only grinned in response, grasping the doorknob to hold the open door still enough to knock on.  “Just a minute!” a woman’s voice called quickly.  Then, a moment later, “Okay, you can come in now!” 

            Jake pushed the door open wide, and Relena caught a glimpse of soft yellow and pink as he stepped inside.  She was confused for a moment as she followed, then saw another flash and realized that she was catching reflections in a series of mirrors in the décor… all leading in the direction of what she imagined was the kitchen.  As she crossed the threshold, she blinked at the distinct click her shoes made on the floor – it was painted, but distinctly metal, as were the walls. 

            It was… nostalgic of the colonies, she supposed – it _looked_ like normal floor, so it couldn’t be for the modern aesthetic. 

            “The loaves are done, but I got a later start than I planned, so the last batch of cookies is still in the oven, if you’ll wait,” announced a woman as she tended the stove, not looking back at them.  Relena immediately recognized her vividly blonde hair as the yellow she had seen a glimpse of, and the pink straps of the apron tied around her explained the rest.  She was petite…  and amusingly, the polish on her toes matched her apron almost exactly.  “The stew’s okay enough,” the woman went on.  “But it’ll be better if I give it another ten minutes to simmer.” 

            Jake sighed in an exaggerated way.  “Cassie, what’s the point of the mirrors if you don’t _check_ them?” 

            The woman – Cassie, evidently – snapped around so fast it was comical, then squealed delightedly at them.  Her eyes were a nearly luminescent jade green.  “Jake!  Oh my God!  Um…”  She fumbled for a moment as she tried to decide on where to set down the spoon she had been stirring with.  “Homes Against Hunger ought to be here any minute to take this all down into town, but…”  She finally just dropped her utensil on a random piece of counter and held her arms open for an embrace as she half-waddled towards Jake.  “It’s so good to see you!”  She giggled as he pulled her into a hug and conspiratorially added, “I _told_ Des you’d be back before the third year was up!”  When he only started to laugh weakly, she noted, “He was threatening to try to refinance the house just to catch your attention, at one point.  I pointed out that it probably wouldn’t work, though.”  She leaned up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek before pulling back, though she kept her hands resting on his elbows.  “And look at me!” she beamed. 

            _It’s a little hard not to,_ Relena thought, amused.  She hadn’t seen it when she was turned away from them, but now that she wasn’t, it was a few steps past obvious.  Cassie was _very_ pregnant. 

            And barefoot.  In the kitchen. 

            Jake was grinning back at his friend.  “I see you finally managed to talk Des around.” 

            She giggled and winked.  “I think he really just wanted me to convince him, in the end.” 

            Jake snorted, and Relena chuckled as his response mirrored her own thoughts.  “I’m sure he didn’t try too hard if you were _that_ determined.  Did I miss the shower?” 

            “ _Yes_!” she half-snarled in response, smacking him in the shoulder before settling her fists on her hips to glower up at him.  “You did.  See what happens when you avoid people for years on end?” 

            “Babies, evidently,” he returned dryly, but with a faraway look.  Relena could tell he was thinking about Addie back at the house, with her little Willam. 

            “That’s right, _babies_!” Cassie crowed self-assuredly, cradling her round belly with pride.  “I was going to say ‘changes’, but yes, babies.”  She patted at her stomach affectionately for emphasis. 

            Jake’s eyes widened in alarm.  “Wait, _plural_?” 

            She stuck her tongue out at him as she backed away and awkwardly spun on one heel, arms still wrapped around her middle as she scuttled back to the stove.  “And wouldn’t _you_ like to know,” she snarked. 

            He was staring at her in something akin to horror now.  “Cassie-” 

            The oven beeped.  “Get those out, would you?” 

            Jake tossed Relena an exasperated look as he snatched a pair of oven mitts off the counter, and the princess could admit that really, she was hardly any help – she was only _just_ managing to grin like mad instead of laughing outright. 

            “On the cooling racks over there,” the bossy mother-to-be ordered once Jake held a massive cookie sheet in each hand, gesturing towards where said racks were already laid out.  He gave her an annoyed look for a moment – which she didn’t deign to notice – before simply following orders. 

            Relena was debating if she ought to offer to make herself useful when a deep male voice called, “Cass?” 

            “Hold on!”  She fished around her neck for a cord and pressed something down on the pendent.  “Okay!” 

            There was something significant about that, but she didn’t have time to piece it together before the newcomer made his way into the kitchen.  “I thought I heard the oven go off.” 

            Average height, mostly dark hair and fair skin; Relena would guess him to be of Mediterranean descent by the set of his eyes and overall facial structure.  Her time with Jake had her instantly cataloguing how he favored his left leg, but in a comfortable way – an old injury.  He was well built, but the gray sprinkled through his black hair suggested more age than his muscle tone would indicate.  He considered her for a moment too, and she saw recognition light in his dark blue eyes, but he only offered her a respectful nod instead of the usual histrionics.  Pleasure flooded her as she returned the gesture, realizing that this must be the friend that they were here to see.  There was something deeply soothing, calming, about his presence… something she felt she ought to recognize, but couldn’t quite place. 

            “Jake took care of it,” Cassie chirped happily, setting her spoon back down on the counter and moving to lean against the man Relena was now sure was her husband. 

            The man – _Des?  Is that short for something?_ – caressed his wife’s hair, carding bright corkscrew curls through his fingers as she sighed and settled more of her weight against him.  He frowned, focusing more deeply on her.  “Are you tired?” 

            “A little,” she admitted, closing her eyes. 

            “You should lay down, then,” he decided easily.  “You’ve been on your feet all morning.” 

            “I’m not done yet,” she whined unconvincingly. 

            He rolled his eyes even as he chuckled softly and twisted more of her curls through his fingers affectionately.  “I’m hardly so helpless than I can’t package food.” He gave her a gentle shove.  “Go.”  She did, but stuck out her tongue at him, to which he grinned and swatted at her behind, which made her squeal – with as much sheer amusement as indignation, Relena noted – before she scampered out of the room.  He laughed lowly and watched her go a little more appreciatively than was appropriate for company – **_Definitely_** _the father_ – before focusing back on them, Jake specifically.  Casually leaning his bad side against the fridge and crossing his arms, he smirked.  “You’re late. 

            “Yes,” Jake agreed as he tossed the hot mitts back on the counter.  “Though you seem to have kept busy.” 

            Des _cackled_ , and something about his body language, the exact way he did it, hit Relena with crashing wave of clarity.  That was _exactly_ how Jake laughed when someone surprised him with a witty comment… 

            _This is someone he first learned to be honest with – to actually show true amusement around._   He had modeled himself after this man, at some point in his life. 

            “ _You_ ,” the man pointed out with an almost evil grin, “never left an address for me to send an announcement to.”  Shifting his weight and gesturing a little whimsically, he added, “And communicating through Jack just seemed… tactless.” 

            Jake sighed.  “He’s been around here, then?” 

            “Mm, on the vid more than in person, but yes.”  He tilted his head and offered a genuine smile.  “It was good of you to invite him over for the holidays, let alone two in a row.  It meant a lot to him.” 

            Jake scrubbed nervously at his scalp, which startled Relena as much as Des’s laughter.  It was one of Jake’s genuine gestures of severe embarrassment – not something she saw often from the man, and _never_ in relation to the subject of his father.  “I’m… trying.” 

            Des’s smile widened even as he shook his head and stood up straight again, moving towards the blonde colonel.  “That’s the best anyone can do.  He doesn’t exactly make it easy, I know, but you _can_ be the bigger man in all this.”  He stopped just outside Jake’s definition of personal space and tilted his head, arms crossed. 

            The pure knowledge the man displayed with his body language as well as the conversation matter, the emotional responses, resonated with Relena even as something else nagged at her.  Jake clearly saw the man as family, and she appreciated the softening in atmosphere, especially after the stress of the past few weeks… but there was something besides that, that seemed more… personal?  That edging of familiarity, even as she was sure that she had never met the man before. 

            Jake seemed to half collapse into himself, not meeting the other man’s eyes.  “I’m sorry.” 

            Des sighed gently.  “Well, you figured out on your own that you needed to quit running.  That’s better than someone making you, really, so we’ll call it good.” 

            “I… wanted to find her, first,” the blonde admitted quietly. 

            Des raised one brow, arms still crossed.  “How’d that go?” he asked in a dry tone. 

            “Badly,” Jake confessed. 

            “I could have told you that much would happen.”  He tilted his head.  “Are you that set on feeling guilty, then?” 

            Jake finally met his eyes, half glowering, even as his lips tried to twitch into a smile.  “Maybe.” 

            “Stop it,” the older man ordered stolidly. 

            “Trying.” 

            “Stop trying and do it,” the man returned almost flippantly, smirking and bouncing slightly on his toes. 

            Jake’s expression was highly amused, even as his body language was a half-assed attempt at irritation.  “You’re awfully demanding, old man.” 

            A title she had only ever heard him direct at Jack, this cemented even more just how much of a father figure Des was. 

            Des barked out another laugh, shifting his weight back onto his good side.  “Not so old, boy.  I’ve got a bona fide son making his way into the world in another two weeks; you’re lucky you showed up before I finished replacing you.” 

            Jake snorted.  “Yeah, what happened to being too old for more kids, exactly?” 

            Des snorted right back.  “You know damn well what happened, brat.” 

            Jake absolutely _cackled_ , finally fully relaxing.  “You _did_ marry a twenty-something.  It’s your own fault.” 

            “I’m going to go with something along the lines of ‘love is blind, and children are beautiful,’” Des returned easily, taking a final step forward and pulling Jake into a tight embrace.  “It’s good to see you, kid,” he muttered after a moment.  “It took you long enough, but I can’t really say how glad I am that you showed up before Lyle made his way into the world.” 

            “Lyle, huh?” 

            “Unless the ultrasounds are wrong, in which case Cassie wants to go with Madison, which is an absolute travesty that must be avoided,” Des returned happily.  “So it _has_ to be a boy.”  He snickered.  “In any case, Cass wasn’t overly impressed with my plans to show up on the princess’ doorstep with a newborn in hand if I couldn’t find a better way to make you come to the christening, so it’s good you took the initiative.” 

            Jake laughed weakly, holding onto him tighter.  “Shit, I missed you…” 

            “And me you, kid,” the man returned warmly.  “Stop being such a stranger.  Godfather rights get revoked if you stay out of touch for more than six months without the excuse of being under deep cover, hear me?” 

            He dropped his forehead against Des’s shoulder.  “Yeah, loud and clear.” 

            “Good.  No more of this guilt bullshit, alright?  You had nothing to do with it, and even if you did, I don’t care – you didn’t, alright?” 

            Jake laughed a bit more helplessly.  “Got it.” 

            “Great.”  Pulling away, he focused on Relena with a smile.  “So.  My apologies for forgoing an introduction, but I suspect he needed the pep talk.” 

            Relena laughed and waved it off, moving forward to shake his hand.  “No need for apologies; I happen to agree.  You acknowledged me first in any case, which forgives any rudeness.” 

            He winked at her as he took her hand.  If anything, that soothing presence had only increased with the resolution of his discussion with Jake, and the hint of joviality only made it more familiar.  “It’s always good to know I haven’t offended royalty,” he quipped. 

            She grinned as they shook properly.  “It hardly needs saying, but – Relena Darlian-Peacecraft.  Let’s leave off the titles for now.” 

            “As you please,” he agreed easily.  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.  Desiderio Noin, at your service.” 

            Relena felt her stomach drop out of her as it finally clicked.  _Noin._   The easy confidence, the deep set, relaxing amusement… his body language, aside from the limp, was nigh identical to Noin’s – to his _daughter’s_ , because that could be the only relation, now that it had occurred to her. 

            He smiled knowingly, and her heart almost broke as she realized just how eerily _similar_ that smile was to another’s.  “Lucrezia always spoke the world of you; it’s not too surprising that Jake would follow in her footsteps.” 

            And she was still missing; Jake’s reluctance suddenly made a lot more sense.  “I’m sorry-” 

            “Ah, ah, none of that,” he scolded resolutely, smiling even as he shook his head.  “If anyone bears the right to any guilt, it’s her poor judgment and other parties I don’t care to mention by name in my house.” 

            “No names?” Jake asked curiously. 

            “Oh, I have names enough, but they’re not fit for polite company,” Des dismissed easily, opening a drawer and pulling out a box of large sealable plastic bags.  Relena snickered, and he grinned over his shoulder at her before asking, “You’re helping me with this, right?  Once we’ve got it ready to go, we can relax in the living room until you need to leave.  Cass is probably hogging the couch with a book by now, but there’s chairs enough for the rest of us.” 

-

***

-

**Near Erfurt, Germany**

            It had not, in the end, been a hard decision.  Following Odin without him noticing had been thrilling and an awesome challenge too, and she was rather proud of herself.  Her brother was on his way to becoming involved with Lucrezia, and it wasn’t like she was jealous or worried or anything; Odin had good taste, and good judgment, even if he was totally hopeless about a lot of normal stuff.  It was just… this lady was important to him, and she had decided she wasn’t okay with being cut out of any part of his life that actually _mattered_ to him. 

            If that meant working with rebel stuff, then her mom could just deal with it; the rebels were doing the right thing anyhow.  And Odin would respect her decision; he’d only kept her out of it because her mom had made him agree, and when Odin made a promise, he kept it.  All the same though, this _was_ her decision, and going behind his back like this gave him plausible deniability if her mom wanted to get mad about it. 

            Odin had been making much bigger decisions way younger than she was now, and it wasn’t like she was being stupid.  She knew her bounds, and so did he – if he told her she needed to back down and hide, or run like a ninny, she wouldn’t argue.  Odin knew his stuff, and he’d always make sure she was as safe as was practical. 

            And really, she hadn’t missed his uneasiness over the idea of shipping her across Europe to hang out with friends he didn’t know so he could do what he had to do without her.  She was safer _with_ him, _whatever_ he got up to, than on her own and he knew it.  He just followed orders when they were given by somebody he respected, and her mom had totally put an ultimatum on him about not involving her unless it was downright dire. 

            It was better for everybody if she went rogue just this once and solved the problem they were all dancing around.  She couldn’t stay in a nice little bubble forever, after all. 

            So she’d activated the tracker and recording program she’d already put through their linked phones, and kept tabs on him as she followed him up through Germany.  When he’d obviously headed out for a gunfight, though, and it was pretty obvious they’d come back to the car, she’d decided to unlock it and hang out there until it was over with.  It had been a bit now and she was bored, though, so when the car door opened without warning and a hand grabbed her shoulder hard, she was totally zoned out in the middle of a memory game she’d put on her phone. 

            For all that she hadn’t been expecting it, Odin had made sure her body learned to counter before her mind had a chance to respond a long time ago.  Relaxing her grip enough that her phone dropped from between her fingers, she wrapped her left arm around the one grabbing her, limiting her attacker’s range of movement and strength, and gripped their jacket tight, using the leverage to slide in closer, fast.  At the same time, she shook her right shoulder so the handle of the baton she kept in her coat sleeve slapped into her palm and shifted her weight forward to plant the heel of her boot hard on the upholstery even as she pulled her opponent out of their center of balance.  She used the moment of disorientation to raise her right fist up to one ear, then slam it down on the other’s right jugular as hard as she could manage both in pure strength and throwing her weight into it for momentum.  As Odin had always told her would happen, the woman’s eyes rolled up and Marlé didn’t try to hold onto her as she collapsed bonelessly to the ground. 

            It was only then that her brain caught up to what had just happened. 

            “Oh my God,” she cried, falling forward on her hands to stare down at the woman on the ground before looking up to see Odin and two strangers standing six meters away.  She focused on her pseudo-brother, her stomach sinking down into her _toes_.  “ _Please_ tell me that wasn’t Lucrezia!” 

            Odin’s expression was entirely exasperated, while the man to his left looked like he couldn’t make up his mind if he was shocked or about to die laughing.  The woman to his right, however, only tilted her head to one side, _entirely_ amused.  “Impressive,” she noted in a husky tone, moving forward.  “You must be Marlé.” 

            “Um, yeah… Hi.”  She focused back down on the woman she’d knocked out guiltily.  “Crap…”  Looking back up at Odin, she did her best to look utterly miserable.  It wasn’t exactly hard – she had a pretty good idea of how bad she’d screwed up.  “She totally snuck up on me and just _grabbed_ me!  I didn’t think, I just-” 

            He still looked exasperated, but he waved a hand dismissively and cut her off.  “I’ve been ingraining you with responsive techniques since we met, Marlé.  It’s… good to see such an innate response.” 

            “You already knew it was good when _you_ scared me,” she pouted. 

            “But you don’t register me as a true threat, and I also know what you’re capable of,” he pointed out. 

            The woman who had confirmed her name let out a low chuckle as she knelt next to the one on the ground to check her vitals.  “She underestimated you.”  Marlé blinked as she met her gaze and realized the woman’s eyes were _purple_.  Her body language was relaxed, amused… and something about that was just… calming.  Almost familiar, actually. 

            _Didn’t Mom have a friend with eyes like that when I was little?_   She’d have to ask…  sometime after she got around to owning up to forcing a meeting with Odin’s friends. 

            The woman stood and brushed off her hands, shaking her head.  “She had every advantage; maybe this will finally teach the girl something.  Xu, get her in the car and buckle her up, mm?” 

            The way she said that… was a _lot_ like Odin, actually.  “You’re her teacher?” 

            Her smile widened, but it was still subdued, if genuine… and she couldn’t help but just _like_ her.  “She’s been my apprentice for over two years now, yes; her and Xutao.” 

            Marlé frowned as she hopped out of the car so Xutao could move the… apprentice.  It worked as a title, she supposed.  Looking back to Odin, she asked, “Wasn’t that the name of the guy you thought was Wufei?” 

            Xu stumbled as Odin confirmed, “That’s him.” 

            She nodded before focusing on the Asian guy and smiling brightly.  “I almost met you a year ago, then, but I wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the chase yet.  I’m Marlé; it’s nice to meet you.” 

            “I like the ‘yet’,” the violet woman announced cheerfully. 

            Odin crossed his arms, smirking.  “She’s faster in a dead sprint than Xu.  I doubt she could beat him in an obstacle course, but she can outpace me through an urban setting for a solid ten minutes.” 

            “We haven’t played tag like that in over a _month_ , Odin,” Marlé pointed out quickly.  “I’ve gotten better!” 

            His smirk widened as the woman laughed delightedly… and Marlé realized something. 

            This lady was wearing the coat Odin had bought for ‘a friend’ back on L1. 

            Relief flooded her as she realized that this _awesome_ chick was Lucrezia, not the handsy one she’d knocked out… and she could definitely see why Odin liked her, if she was like this all the time.  “You’re cool,” she decided. 

            Lucrezia smirked back at her, tilting her head.  “Thank-you.”  Her eyes trailed back to Odin.  “She’s tagging along this time, then?” 

            Her brother shrugged.  “Apparently.” 

            Lucrezia pursed her lips and focused back on Marlé for a moment… before her eyes just _sparkled_.  “You’re not supposed to be here.” 

            She liked how it wasn’t either a question _or_ a reprimand.  “My mom has issues she needs to get over, and Odin didn’t want to piss her off.”  Shrugging a bit, she pointed out, “But she loves me, so she can’t stay mad at _me_ for all that long… and it’s not like he knew about it ahead of time, I totally tracked him, and he didn’t catch me.”  She stood up straighter as pride swelled through her chest.  “I think I get points for that.” 

            Lucrezia only smiled.  “I would have to agree.” 

            “I like you,” Marlé announced.  Something about this lady just… resonated, or something. 

            “You already said that,” Odin pointed out.  “And I’m not telling your mother.  You are.” 

            “Whatever.”  She grinned.  “I really wanted to see Sanc anyway.” 

            “Sanc?” the woman asked Odin curiously. 

            “Among other places,” he returned vaguely.  Considering the car for a moment, he noted, “Don’t sit next to Hilde.” 

            She made a face at him.  “I’m not _stupid_ , Odin.” 

            “I know,” he returned simply, moving for the front seat as Xu got ‘Hilde’ strapped in.  “But you’re not invulnerable, and she’s…”  He paused to consider his words for a moment before deciding on, “volatile.” 

            Xutao choked on his spit and started coughing.  Lucrezia chuckled and opened the door to the driver’s seat.  “Apt as ever, Odin.” 

            …Yeah, she could definitely get why Odin liked her. 

-

***

-

**Tivoli, Italy - Noin Household  
**

            “How long can you stay?” Des asked, settling back in his chair with a drink in one hand.  The charity group Cassie was a part of had come and left with the food while the woman had kept Relena out of sight by showing her the nursery – all done in greens and blues.  The two had since been doing who knew what; Jake didn’t particularly figure Lena to be the type to coo over baby stuff, but they’d evidently gotten distracted by something or other. 

            “Another forty minutes or so,” Jake admitted with a sigh after considering his watch.  “Sorry, but…” 

            “But you have a job, and a life, and, of course,” he raised his glass for emphasis as his smile widened, “a cause.  Cheers to that, by the way.” 

            Jake shook his head.  “Thanks, I guess.” 

            “You’ve always had a talent for picking them,” the older man pointed out cheerfully. 

            Before he could come up with any sort of response to that, the doorbell rang again.  He frowned.  “Did they forget anything?” 

            “Who knows,” Des muttered as he stood and made his way back to the door, checking that the switch was off on the plate before stepping into the entryway.  It should be, since they’d shut and locked the door, but… you didn’t keep that kind of security and not constantly check it.  _I need to make sure he knows Cassie didn’t **look** in the damn mirrors,_ he thought with a grimace.  There was no _point_ in a security system if you disabled it before _checking_ who you were letting in. 

            Des was back in a moment, balancing an overly decorated box with a bright smile.  “Delivery?” Jake asked curiously. 

            “Mm, my yearly proof that I’m still loved,” the other returned while giving him an irritated look and dropping back into his chair. 

            Jake’s lips twitched.  “You needed proof?” 

            “It’s usually appreciated.”  He was leaning over to set the box down on the table between them.  “It’s one of the more useful points of conversing with another person, you realize.”  He flicked the box open… right into Jake’s face as he leaned forward to see what was in it. 

            The soldier snorted, flicking it back shut.  “First of all, we already covered the fact that I have issues, _years_ ago… and _this_ -”  He tapped the lid shut again as Des flicked it into his face a second time, “doesn’t seem very… _wordy_ , anyhow.” 

            “That’s because all you young people are back on the kick of actions meaning more than words,” Des told him, toying with the lid, apparently debating if he could get away with flicking it a third time.  “Which is all well and good, but words _are_ appreciated too.”  He met his eyes.  “You’re supposed to at least say ‘thank-you’ when someone saves your house, you know.” 

            Jake looked down, studying the lid for lack of anything else to focus on.  “I didn’t think it was worth the embarrassment.” 

            His voice was dry.  “Because my surrogate kid saving my ass was so much more mortifying than getting my ancestral manor foreclosed on would have been.  Of course.  It all makes perfect sense now.  I finally understand why you’ve been avoiding me all these years.” 

            Jake closed his eyes.  “Des…” 

            “Boy, you paid my damn mortgage and left me no way to even send you a damn thank-you card.  I’m not humiliated – I’m irate.” 

            He sighed.  “I told you, I wanted to-” 

            “Lucrezia made it clear to everyone years ago that she was no one’s responsibility but her own,” her father cut off.  “If neither I or the Zeus wannabe have any claim on her, neither do you.” 

            He laughed in spite of himself at that, looking back up to meet his eyes.  “Seriously?” 

            “What’s the point in bad puns if you have no one to share them with?” 

            He gave him a level look and deadpanned, “Ow.” 

            His returning grin was broad.  “Thank-you.” 

            Jake rolled his eyes, flopping all the way back in his recliner.  “Happy birthday, old man.” 

            He snorted as he opened the box again and pulled something out.  “I’m not _that_ old.” 

            “Keep letting your pretty little wife tell you that.” 

            “I will.”  Then he coughed out a laugh and tossed a little card in Jake’s lap.  “Hah!” 

            He frowned, picking it up. 

 

-

            _Not **too** old to be a Daddy, right?  _

_Happy birthday, and many wishes for the years ahead._

-

 

            A nice sentiment… but no one had signed it.  The words were typescript… no doubt custom messages were a service from the bakery whose label was typed out on the box.  “Cute,” he agreed.  “Who sent it?” 

            “It’s never signed,” Des admitted.  “But it shows up like clockwork each year.”  He spun the box around so the opening faced the soldier.  “Have one.” 

            He was opening his mouth to ask why he was comfortable eating something from an anonymous person, but as soon as he saw the contents, the words died on his tongue.  Neatly lined up, filling the box, were apple tart squares. 

 

-

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Baking,” Lu replied simply, continuing to pull stuff out of the fridge._

_Jake considered the tiny little kitchenette she was standing in.  It was honestly little more than a sink and maybe two feet of counter next to a stove.  “That sounds… painful.”_

_She hummed out an amused noise.  “Well, it ought to be interesting, but I can make it work.”_

_He was tempted to ask **how** , but a more important question rose instead.  “Why?”  _

_“Because the local bakery here doesn’t make what I need.”_

_That… would make sense if she was talking about something other than baked goods, maybe.  “Need?”_

_She looked over her shoulder at him and laughed at his expression, shaking her head.  “Yes.  Here,” she tossed a bag of apples at him.  “Peel and dice those for me?”_

_He caught the bag and debated for a moment, then just grabbed the roll of paper towels and pulled a knife before dropping to the floor.  It was **Lu** , so… sure, why not.  “What are you making?”  _

_“Apple bars.”_

_-_

 

            “Lu,” he whispered, staring at the things.  Every year since he’d met her, she’d either bought or made these for her dad for his birthday… even when they’d been fourteen and crashing in some crap little motel room in a no-name town before meeting up with Des for a few days of vacation up north.  It was just what she’d always done; said it was something her mom had always done for him and when the woman had grown sick she’d started taking it over… 

            …and she’d never stopped, apparently. 

            Des reached over to pick up a square and place it in Jake’s hand, meeting his eyes and offering another smile.  “You worry too much, boy.” 

            …Shit, if he’d actually come and visited when he should have, he’d have had a damn proof of life for his friend _years_ ago.  He groaned.  “I’m a fucking moron…” 

            “Mm, only some days.”  Reaching out and taking one for himself, he added,  “Eat, before Cassie remembers where the stairs are and claims the rest in the name of Lyle.” 

            He obediently took a bite.  “Seriously?  You used to hoard these things for a solid two weeks every year.”  He was generally lucky to get one or two. 

            “Lesson for a long life: never withhold sweets from a pregnant woman.  Violence has a way of following if you do.” 

            He snickered.  “I can’t really see Cassie violent.” 

            “And I don’t care to – Sylvia was more than enough.  Cassandra can have anything her hormones desire.” 

            Jake paused before just nodding a little to show he followed.  Des didn’t usually talk about his first wife unless prompted, so it wasn’t exactly… familiar ground.  Instead he picked up the card and reread it.  “It sounds like she knows about her brother,” he offered. 

            “I’ve been posting announcements on every sort of social network and news forum I can think of for the past five months,” Des told him dryly.  “I’m practically shouting it from the mountaintops.  You would have to be actively trying to ignore me to not know.” 

            Jake grimaced, taking another bite of his square.  “I guess I deserved that.”  He debated for a moment, then just got it out.  “I saw her, last December.” 

            “Your seven month turnaround in the face of proof is absolutely astounding, Jacob.  I’m most impressed.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  “I was just coming to from almost dying and had some of the most impressive narcotics I’ve ever had the excuse try in my bloodstream.  I convinced myself I probably hallucinated the whole thing.”  He tipped his head to one side, trying to sort out the details.  “If I didn’t, though… she grew her hair back out.” 

            “Mm, good call; her Prince Genocide probably has no idea she could look feminine.  He’ll never recognize her.” 

            “I think that was worse than the Zeus one,” Jake noted wryly.  “I didn’t think that was possible.” 

            “I have to air a few of the stupid ones that will haunt you before the princess comes back and I behave myself,” he pointed out happily. 

            Jake groaned.  “No…  You really don’t.” 

-

***

-

**July 14 th 198 – Tuesday – Skopje, Macedonia – The Skyview**

            “Welcome to The Skyview, Miss.” 

            _“Ah, bonjour!”_ the young woman greeted exuberantly, doing an impromptu half-curtsy with a bright smile.  She was weighed down by bags; not of the traveling sort, but Neiman Marcus, Gucci, Dior, Prada, and the like.  This was saying nothing of the full-length white fur coat, ten thousand dollar purse, or the dress that barely covered what it needed to.  _Maybe it doesn’t,_ Phillip debated as he tried not to stare.  The coat probably covered any… _mishaps_ while still allowing her to show off ridiculously long legs.  Long, _tanned_ legs that ended in the sort of overly complicated high-heeled shoes that rich women seemed to adore. 

            In other words, this was the sort of woman who didn’t really care or notice how much money she tossed at something, which meant that so long as he played this right, it could be the tip of a lifetime.  It ought to be one for the record board they kept in the back room, at any rate. 

            “How might I be of service, Mademoiselle?” he asked politely, offering a full bow in return to her little excited tilt.  English was standard, but she’d already greeted him in French; it would either win him points or make no difference. 

            She giggled, shifting her weight, juggling her bags a little.  “Eh, rooms, yes?” 

            “Of course.  Do you have any particular preference, my lady?” 

            Her smile was appreciative.  “I was told Stogovo.  Is… _libre_?” 

            “Let me check for you.”  He tapped at the keys, entering his password and checking the vacancies.  “Ah, yes, all fresh and ready for you just this morning.  That’s one of our most popular suites.  You’re a lucky lady!” 

            “Lucky!” she agreed in a happy but vacant way that suggested she didn’t actually know the word.  She shifted one hip forward, her purse resting on it, and suggested, “Card?” 

            …The way the zipper on that purse was, he’d have to brush up against her to open it.  That was _asking_ for trouble. 

            She was frowning at him.  “ _Ca va, Monsieur?_ ”  She actually jiggled her hips a bit so that the purse bounced a bit towards him… and the hemline of the dress wavered dangerously.  He wasn’t sure if he imagined seeing something lacy white or not. 

            Flushing brilliantly – _harassment claims, great way to get fired, stay **focused!**_ – he waved her off.  She obviously had the money for the suite of rooms.  “I’ll take your payment after you have a chance to set your things down, Mademoiselle,” he assured her.  “After you see that you like your room, yes?” 

            “ _D’accord!_ ” she agreed cheerfully, bouncing back to a more normal stance, and… 

            _Don’t think about it,_ he ordered himself strictly.  “Did you have any other luggage?”  Come to think of it, it was strange that there wasn’t a suitcase in tow. 

            Pretty gray-green eyes widened as she exclaimed, spinning in a way that he would have thought impossible in those silly shoes to stare at the door; Phillip tried to close his eyes against the flaring hem, but was pretty convinced now that the lace _wasn’t_ his imagination.  “The cab!  He-” 

            “I’m sure the driver left your bag by the curb, Miss,” he assured her.  She didn’t look any calmer about it – whether it was a lack of translation or belief was debatable – but as she shifted her bags around again and tried to untangle her ankles from their awkward position – _How **was** that possible?_ – she almost tripped.  Thankfully, he’d already stepped around the counter and managed to catch her before she crashed to the marble floor.  “Careful there.” 

            Her eyes were still wide with panic as she straightened herself.  “ _Mais, je ne peux pas-_ ” 

            “You stay right here, miss, where it’s warm,” he told her in an easy tone.  He knew maybe three words of French, but tone of voice had a way of crossing the language barrier.  He made a placating gesture at her as he released his hold on her arms, and gestured towards the front door of the lobby.  “I’ll go find them, okay?  Daccor?”  Mimicry helped on occasion too. 

            “Oh, _merci!_ ”  She cried, practically as if he’d offered to save her kitten out of a river.  “ _Merci, Monsieur!_ ”  

            He offered her an easy smile and nod.  “It’s no trouble, Miss.”  He rushed for the door at a commanding sort of pace, eager to get out of view to try and regain some composure… and groaned at the _five_ large cases, all of a matching set, sitting on the curb.  _Of course_.  How she could have possibly forgotten about this much luggage was beyond him.  Letting out a long breath, he pulled out his key for the little valet closet to one side, where he could get a cart to load the lady’s things onto. 

            He didn’t see the young blonde step gracefully around the side of his desk and seriously examine the screen for a moment, tapping quickly at the keys to review the recent information taken in for the Stogovo suite.  He didn’t see her pull a phone out of her coat and silently snap a few pictures.  By the time he made it back inside, his screen was back at the setting he had left it at, and she was awkwardly trying to pick up a smaller shopping bag that she had dropped without putting any of the others down first. 

            It was times like this that Phillip was really glad their hotel only kept external cameras.  As big of a tip as he might get for this, he was just as glad that none of his coworkers would ever be able to see him gape like a fish when a red satin piece of negligee fell to the floor while his guest turned almost upside down.  They could never call him on stuttering and blushing like a virgin when she let out an aggravated noise and asked him to please pick it up for her… that no, not _that_ bag, put it _here_ … 

            Maybe he wouldn’t write up whatever tip he got on the record board in the break room.  This was the least suave he would ever want to admit to being in ten lifetimes; he didn’t want any questions. 

-

***

-

_ Fifteen minutes later _

            Priya snickered to herself as she tugged her phone back out of her pocket and tossed her coat on an armchair before going to flop on the couch.  Some people were just so _easy_ to put off balance… poor boy.  He had to be at least five years her senior, but really, he couldn’t be anything _but_ a boy, with how easy he was to tug this way and that. 

            Shaking her head, she focused back on her cell, biting one lip.  The fact that it had been a remote check-out meant she was dealing with a wider search radius than she’d like… but there was a boon of some extra information she hadn’t expected, so she couldn’t be too upset.  It could make things easier… 

            _But how cautious is he being?  Would a regular search on the name set off personal flags?_   It was a pity that she couldn’t take the risk that it wasn’t so.  No… too much was at stake to risk spooking him; she’d just have to go about it by more oblique routes, and see where she ended up. 

            _Ah, well._   Half the fun of a search was the ways you got sidetracked. 

-

-

-

-

**  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? 
> 
> \--  
> A note about Noin's development:  
> \--  
> Noin is often presented as being as bereft of family as the other main characters of Gundam Wing, but when I tried to look at her on a pure psychological and sociological level… she’s frankly too healthy, too stable, to have lacked a solid home life. Her values system strongly reflects it, the same way Sally’s does. If you look back, You’ll see that Desiderio Noin has been referenced a handful of times before now, and that Lucrezia has mentioned Cassie at least once, but a frame of reference as to who they were was never given until now.


	10. Over the Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin and Lucrezia lead their followers on a dubious adventure; Hilde copes... less than marvelously. At the same time, Relena is kicking ass and taking names (politely), Jake falls deeper into depression, and the intrigue thickens. Marlé is having the time of her life, and Odin discovers a few more gaps in his education.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of my favorite moments are in this chapter, as well as a number of revealing hints to running plotlines - as well as blatant info dumps. Yay for the 44 page chapter getting edited and posted just a few hours after I put up the last one?
> 
> \--Edit:--  
> Mild expansion to details in Jake's scene, but mostly it's just grammar and flow variations again. I got this edit version up a lot faster, at least?
> 
> \--  
> -
> 
> World-building note:
> 
> I mentioned at some point in a previous author’s note that based on the age range we see in the work force, I believe there’s likely multiple tracks of speed that schooling can take in this universe, and that’s why fifteen-year-olds like Relena and them can be in schools that say, focus completely on politics, or Zechs and Noin (at nineteen years old) show no signs of current schooling at all – Noin’s even something of a professor. If they’re as talented with the mobile suits as they are, that implies a strong base in physics at the least, which in turn requires a strong base in math… In the end, I’m just going to conclude that there’s a school track that has you finishing high school level stuff before age fourteen. 
> 
> Relena’s school in canon, therefore, was more of a political science college, and Noin’s students were graduating their form of Associate’s degree. Zechs went into the work force fully after obtaining his “Associate” and went forward based on talent/work experience. And Noin probably went forward in more school to some degree before becoming the “professor” she seems to be in early canon. It obviously doesn’t translate directly, but in terms of prestige and practical know-how, that’s the basis. Additionally, if you don’t want to make your kid decide what they want to do with their lives at the tender age of thirteen, I imagine a more normal track is plenty common all the same; the schools the gundam pilots went into and out of throughout the canon could have been either of the above; I doubt they gave a damn, since the only one who ever did a formal version of school was Wufei. Overall, it’s probably more common for the higher-class kids to be in the faster track because their parents are more likely to try plotting out their careers before they turn six.

**_-_ **

**_ Over the Edge _ **

_\--_

_“Instead of swinging back and forth between individual points of truth, each piece we learn should build upon another to bring us closer to the full truth.” –Amy Layne Litzelman_

_\--_ **  
**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**July 15 th 198 – Wednesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Book?” 

            “Yes, Lin, _book_ ,” Mu replied sarcastically without looking up from the pages.  “How very observant of you.” 

            Lincoln rolled his eyes and flopped onto the couch next to the woman, shifting forward to try to read the title.  “Are you sure it’s not a weapon of mass destruction?  _Or_ ,” he paused for dramatic license, “a sandwich in disguise?” 

            She lowered the paperback then to give him a wry look.  “Mostly.” 

            “You should check that out.” 

            “If I catch you trying to eat my stuff, you _die_ , Lin.” 

            “Why would I try to eat a book?” he demanded in mock offense. 

            The American woman groaned, dropping the thing in her lap.  “Okay, fine, what do you want?” 

            Quickly, he snatched it up so he could read the back.  “I wanted to know what it was about.  You seemed focused enough on it.”  And it actually did sound pretty interesting, from the summary.  Some sort of epic adventure fantasy, looked like.  “Huh.” 

            “If I start packing around torrid romance novels, will you still do this?” Mu asked in an amused tone. 

            “Depends on how hot the chick is,” he returned flippantly, turning the novel over to consider the cover.  “So is this any good, or are you still waiting for it to pick up?” 

            He hadn’t gone overly out of his way to get close to Mu, really.  She hadn’t seemed all that interested, hadn’t struck out at him somehow, and the friendship didn’t more or less slide into place on its own like it did with most the rest of the guard.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like her; it just… didn’t really happen.  Sometimes, things just panned out that way.  Normally, he’d have left it at that. 

            But Relena was… concerned. 

            So… he needed to start building a premise for snooping into her life and, in particular, possessions. 

            Mu snatched the book back and swatted him with it. 

            It might be harder than he expected, especially if the princess’ suspicions _did_ have any grounds. 

            “No, seriously, is it any good?”  She was leaning back again to read and generally ignore him, and he was intent on making an opening to be a friend before he left her to it.  He needed her attention without getting so obnoxious that she spurned him… 

            _This would be so much easier if it was Mai._   But then, Mai wasn’t suspected of any duplicity… and was already his friend, without any going out of his way.  _Mai_ had been through Jake’s rather harrowing selection process. 

            Mu Ackroyd hadn’t.  Knowing that alone made him curious enough to investigate, and then Lena had told him to look for anything off. 

            To delve for anything that seemed even _slightly_ off with _prejudice_. 

            And to keep it completely under their favorite colonel’s nose. 

            In other words?  Total challenge of a lifetime.  Best option?  Win the woman’s friendship for real and just be a _really_ nosy friend.  He was awful at minding his own business anyway; the best cover wasn’t a cover at all, right? 

            He needed to keep his mind off that shit with Mitchell anyhow. 

-

***

**-**

**Vulkanus, Near L3**

            “I agree that the situation is unfortunate,” Treize soothed.  “But it’s hardly frantic.  I have been aware of the possibility for… quite some time.  Evidence has suggested such a shift for months now.” 

            In a way, it was actually something of a relief.  Váli hadn’t been in any sort of real contact for nearly half a year, and it had been uncertain before that.  This, frankly, resolved any doubts. 

            “This could be a good thing,” he continued.  “Try to consider the future possibilities.”  There were surprisingly few poor ones, really.  “I respect that this may be difficult, but take a few steps back to remove yourself from the equation, and I suspect it will all resolve favorably with no further tampering.”  Glancing toward the timer he had started for this conversation, he grimaced.  “I need to go.  Have a little faith, friend.” 

-

***

-

**July 20 th 198 – Monday – Newport, Sanc – Palace Grounds**

            “I should have guessed you had an ulterior motive.”  Despite the words, Noin sounded terribly amused. 

            “You knew I was looking for a way to tinker without an audience,” Heero pointed out amiably. 

            “But I can’t pass off the sinking impression that you tampered with the sprinkler system just so that the garden would need attention in the first place.” 

            The gundam pilot shook his head.  “It was purely opportunistic.” 

            “And it gave you my permission to avoid your budding fan club.” 

            He laughed.  “Even you weren’t going to watch my attempt at gardening.” 

            Her general made an amused noise.  “You’re a colony boy; I figured the attempt would range somewhere between frustrating and hysterically sad.” 

            For a guy Duo had always described as a socially stunted psychopath who somehow really meant well in the end, Heero never seemed to be _alone_ for Hilde to approach and talk to.  The fact that Noin seemed to have a sweet spot for him didn’t make it any easier. 

            “Hn.  I’m not actually sure I’m from the colonies.” 

            He didn’t act _anything_ like she’d been told. 

            “The Earthborn don’t intuitively understand zero-g.” 

            “And the spaceborn don’t think of the ocean like water.  Marlé’s stunned by the concept of a beach, and she’s always lived on strong biome colonies.” 

            That… was probably a good argument.  Earthborn who had lived in landlocked areas most of their lives often marveled at the ocean, but the things that caused that wonder in them – the pure, impossible, largely inaccessible expanse – made the spaceborn write it off as a smaller version of space, and therefore uninteresting.  Most Earthborn didn’t pick up that it could be hard to think of a transition point between land and sea as any less dangerous than spaceport docks were.  The fact that they were entirely open and uncontrolled was… unnerving. 

            It was silly, sure, but… that didn’t make it _not_ one of those things. 

            “You still hadn’t ever planted anything in your life.” 

            “The mechanics weren’t that hard to sort out.” 

            “Why exactly do we need three people to dig up some rosebush he planted a data chip under?” Hilde finally demanded. 

            Heero tossed her a confused look.  “We’re breaking into a palace.” 

            “An _abandoned_ palace,” Hilde pointed out. 

            “An abandoned palace which stands as a memorial to the dictator’s treasured childhood,” Noin added dryly.  “Which could be watched by any number of electronic means to maintain its sanctity.  We’re pretty sure we’re blocking any signals to and from the area, but incase we missed a frequency or some other method of surveillance, it would be wise to have both warning before it finishes arriving, and back-up if necessary.”  Glancing around, she nodded.  “As a matter of fact, this makes a good first vantage point.  Stay here, keep a sharp eye, and check in regularly.”  Focusing back on Heero as she continued walking, she noted, “I imagine I’m more familiar with the grounds than you; I know a route that should give us more cover.” 

            Hilde crossed her arms and considered for a moment before sighing and flicking her earpiece off manual mode, turning to consider the landscape.  This was a stupid sort of tangle… Duo had said he wanted her to tell any other pilots about him if she met them, but _not_ to let anyone else find out. 

            Adam hadn’t really been Trowa, so she’d decided to not do that unless she got to talk to Duo again and he gave her the green light.  But for all that it was usually rants or complaints, Duo had always talked the _most_ about Heero instead of any of the pilots, even though he’d really spent more time with and probably got on better with Quatre.  In some twisted fashion, she suspected they might have been best friends through the war; they like… clicked, or something.  He would _want_ Heero to know…  Hell, she was pretty sure he’d told her she could tell the other pilots where he was just so he could give her a way to tell Heero if he did the impossible of surviving again, without admitting he was singling the guy out.  He could be so stupid insecure about weird shit, sometimes… but that was just _Duo_. 

            At any rate, she needed to try tackling this a different way.  It was getting more and more obvious that passive wasn’t going to work. 

-

***

**Budapest, Hungary**

            “Alright, thank-you so much!” Priya chirped as she hung up, before sighing and dropping back onto the bed she was seated on with an undignified flop.  _Another dead end._   The trail, really, was starting to look frighteningly cold.  She wasn’t going to give up until she had followed every vaguely _possible_ lead, but…  She was pretty sure he’d either stopped using traceable accounts entirely – going the cash and anonymity route – or picked up a different identity.  Either was… entirely possible. 

            If her next few ideas all failed, she was going to have to look into tracking whoever he had met up with.  A total of four guests had been listed as staying in the Skyview’s Stogovo suite, but only two names: Katriel Dimardin and Odin Lowe.  There were a couple of possible reasons the others hadn’t been listed, but… without further evidence, it was just too varied to draw conclusions from.  Associates that weren’t the contact point, minors, hookers, random homeless person they filled in to lead a false trail… 

            If you got creative, almost anything was possible. 

            People tended to get creative at the least expected times; better to just preempt it. 

            It didn’t make her not want to scream about the difficulty of it all, just the same. 

-

***

-

**July 21 st 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Well I don’t know about that, _but_ if he’s _really_ gone and done it, then how _should_ she take it?” 

            “Whether or not he’s guilty has nothing to do with it!  There’s reputation to consider, and a show _must_ be made of it if she intends to keep any respect whatsoever.” 

            “Point, but there’s cost, and in the end of the day…” 

            Relena tuned the young noblewomen out; she really didn’t care about who was sleeping with who and what it meant on the social scene, just now.  She had orders to sign off, inventories to consider, politicians to maneuver, atmospheres to twist, and at least five less inches of breathing room than she would like to do it all in. 

            So naturally, Dorothy and Olivia were gossiping and painting their nails in her office.  She was starting to wonder if it might have been better if they remained at each other’s throats. 

            Daniella bustled into the room a moment later, a notebook in hand.  “Okay, I’ve got it sorted now.  Lord Kalvalage can-” 

            Relena waved her to come closer and show her as the younger girl continued explaining, and let out something of a sigh of relief at the organized structure of what was apparently a hand drawn agenda.  Jake had announced that his previous methods – fine tip colored pens and all – was going to have to be tossed due to the complicated nature of having suddenly gained her position as Minister of Foreign Affairs.  He’d been keeping two separate books for a while, and frankly, it was a wonder that nothing crucial had been missed in the back and forth.  And he was willing to admit – in the face of spending far too much time juggling little black books – that they probably needed an _actual_ personal assistant at this point. 

            Enter the Fonne sisters, again.  She hadn’t gotten a terribly clear impression of _which_ of the two was going to fulfill the role of maid versus assistant, as they kept tag-teaming any effort they put in, but if one or both of them had made sense of the mess that her life was escalating into, she had no complaints.  _Delegation._   It wasn’t a skill she had needed overly much before, but if she and Jake didn’t _both_ figure it out thoroughly and quickly, something or other was bound to go terribly wrong. 

            She looked over the set-up in detail as Daniella regaled her with facts, and after a minute or two told her to both get a more long-term scratch version, and put it into a digital media.  “Tell Hayden to get you a tablet, whatever you think will work best for this, one with phone capabilities,” she added as she sent the girl off.  “If he needs more parameters, consult the colonel.”  He and Hayden were the ones designing the new network, though on different levels; they’d know far better than her. 

            “Sit,” Olivia announced, suddenly in front of her, guiding her by the shoulders to one of her couches and taking a nail file from the coffee table. 

            “I do _not_ have time for this,” Relena didn’t quite bark, making to stand. 

            Dorothy gently pushed her back down as Olivia took both her hands to consider.  “Perspective is important.  Dictate, if you must; I will write.” 

            “I _need_ overseers I can trust for two dozen tasks,” she snapped, narrowing her eyes at the blonde, choosing to ignore the redhead starting to shape her nails.  “People I can trust to be competent, and not weave around me for personal profit.” 

            “Do you have any notes on the locals of your project sites?” 

            “On the desk,” she admitted.  “I haven’t gone through them yet, but that won’t-” 

            “The nobles will be offended if they’re excluded,” Olivia interrupted. 

            “Yes,” Relena agreed. 

            “Check and balance, then,” the redhead announced.  “Against a new class of favorites we need to determine.  Judicious action at the first need for action against them, fair rewards elsewise.” 

            Relena pursed her lips, then nodded.  “The top tier of each area needs to be in Romefeller hands, if I’m to win them over.”  Trust… trust was the problem with delegation, and that was _impossible_ , but there were ways around it… 

            “Consider making selections through the non-inheriting lines first,” Olivia added.  “French manicure?” 

            Relena blinked, then focused back on her hands briefly.  “Yes.” 

            “Those are the ones with the most to gain from loyalty to you.  A number of them would love nothing more than to strike out independently and make their own mark on the age.” 

            “So you mean they’re in _your_ class,” Dorothy pointed out not quite acidly. 

            “Therefore, I know them intimately,” Olivia agreed smoothly.  “Successes and failures, wants and dreams, status within their hierarchies, and consequently, exactly what pressure they could put on who to get what we want.”  She raised her elegantly shaped brows at the Heiress.  “I’ll leave you to wrangle the old crowd, while I cultivate the new.”  Focusing back on the princess’ nails, she asked, “Tell me the required skill sets for each position.” 

            “List the positions first,” Dorothy argued, sitting down on Relena’s other side with a notebook and pen so she would be able to see whatever was written.  “So we don’t risk a mix and match.” 

            “Position and description of each,” Olivia filled in.  “Right, of course.  We can determine skill sets from that.” 

            ...This probably counted as delegation too, on some level. 

-

***

-

**July 22 nd 198 – Wednesday – Navahrudak, Belarus**

            _Definitely classrooms…  Lockers?  We totally should have had lockers._   Never mind that her textbooks had been on a digital pad and she wouldn’t have had much to put in one.  Plenty of kids were milling in and out of that building over there, though…  Focusing on looking like she knew where she was going and was disinterested in talking to anybody, Marlé shifted the bag on her back, fiddled with her headphones, and headed that way. 

            Odin had made it clear that if someone figured out she wasn’t _really_ a registered student, she’d have to _get_ registered for however long that took in the admin office, and go through a whole day of ninth grade as a consequence.  This was a _test_ … and she had _no_ desire to waste a whole day in _public school_.  She’d heard Meagan brag to someone once that Marie’s ACET prep school was at the same level in seventh grade as most schools were in eleventh, and she _really_ didn’t want to find out if her nanny had been exaggerating or telling the truth.  Especially since she was pretty sure they were living on L3-16512 in the first place _because_ Opal Thrush Preparatory Academy was there. 

            And this was her first real go at anything like spy stuff.  If she messed up, with a stupid _school_ – especially with Odin’s stories of what he’d pulled off at high-end academies like _hers_ – she would _die_ of embarrassment.  The whole _point_ of sending her in was so they didn’t have to wait until night to get the computer chip Odin had stashed here three years ago. 

            Working her way through the crowd, purposefully looking all focused on her cell phone, she eventually got inside, and stopped from letting out a sigh. 

            _Cafeteria._  

            Still, if she was a student here she’d have _known_ it was the cafeteria, so she made her way over to a vending machine no one was too focused on – it only had water – and reached into her pocket for some coins.  She needed a reason to have come in… and it wasn’t like she wouldn’t drink the water. 

            “So I was like, ‘Oh. My. God!’  And he totally didn’t even care, I swear, he was just standing there all-” 

            “That’s kinda hot, though.  I mean, it’s all-” 

            “I can’t believe I lost them!  My dad’s going to kill me!” 

            “Chill, man, like anyone cares if you got a B.” 

            “Charlotte scored eight points higher, though!” 

            They were all…  really _loud_.  She wasn’t sure if that was because they were a bunch of high schoolers or if she’d just gotten too used to Odin, though.  It was this jumbled wall of suffocating _noise_ that was bothering her more than shooting without earplugs did. 

            “ _So_ fine, man, you have no idea-” 

            “This smells wrong.  Taste it and tell me if it’s okay.”

            “ _You_ do it, I’m not getting sick because you’re a-” 

            Someone let out a high-pitched _squeal_ that made her ears ring.  It was a happy sort of squeal, but… 

            _Amos puts up with this five days a week **how**?_  

            Collecting her water, she shouldered her way back out of the group – geeze, people in a normal crowd _moved_ when you were making an effort to go by – and back into the courtyard area.  That really only left one other building… and unfortunately it was the biggest.  Internally, she sighed. 

            A buzzer went off, and different kids started heading to this or that part of the campus with more purpose. 

            Sighing aloud, she started jogging to the only building that could be the gymnasium, now.  The longer this took, the more likely she was to get caught out and get _stuck_ here.  Plenty of other people were heading the same way, so she stayed with them without really being _with_ them, or looking apart…  this place was big enough that they wouldn’t notice that she was new.  Well, that or they just didn’t pay attention to stuff. 

-

***

-

            “Why are we doing this again?” 

            “Because it gives her something to do,” Noin pointed out all too cheerfully. 

            “She’s going to get caught, so why bother?” 

            “…Have you ever _been_ to an intercity school like this?” 

            “ _No_.” 

            Xu snickered. 

            The General’s voice was wry.  “It’s not exactly a military base; she’s not going to get caught out unless she paints herself pink and tries to dance around the hallways in front of a teacher.” 

            “…Is pink your favorite color?” 

            This time, Hilde snickered. 

            “I walked into that one, didn’t I?  No, it’s really not.  I appreciate the pony, but no more pink things, please.” 

            “Aa.  In any case, though, noise might be a factor.  I’m not sure if it’ll echo.” 

            “Noise?” 

            “Well, I’m not worried about her gymnastic ability.” 

            “…Noin, please tell me he’s making a joke about having put it in a gymnasium.” 

            “…What?” 

            “Don’t get your hopes up.” 

-

***

-

            She felt like an idiot when she got inside and remembered that however big it was, it was still a _gym_ , and almost all of the space was wide open and not someplace she could get lost in trying to figure out Odin’s directions.  The bleachers were the mechanized kind that folded flat against the wall, though, and all compressed right now… and the highest part was over two meters higher than she’d been figuring. 

            The chip she was after was in a patched hole he’d made behind the top tier, second section from the left.  She _really_ hoped the understructure was expansive, so she’d have decent footholds, but she had the sinking feeling it wasn’t. 

            …She knew she’d known better, but seriously, Odin never did _anything_ by halves. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands - New Renew  
**

            _Sometimes,_ Melissa wondered idly as she considered how skillfully her husband was managing to juggle a toddler while rewiring the innards of a freezer, _I really want to know what I did in a past life to warrant such good luck.  The bragging rights must really be something, if the reward’s this good._   They weren’t planning on kids for a long while, but seriously…  watching him be all domestic made her want to crow victoriously at any nearby woman, never mind that there was no contest taking place. 

            Grinning and shaking her head, she slid back under the truck she was working on.  Daddy was asleep upstairs, and Duo was more than game to attend to her father’s needs if it came to it, but…  Frankly, every moment she could get with him had become precious, after the bombing.  He was recovering fine and all, but… 

            Melissa hadn’t wanted so badly to _maim_ somebody since she’d killed Cal.  Bombing a civilian building?  Who got off on that?  She was lucky she still _had_ a father; plenty of other people, she was sure, _didn’t_ anymore. 

            It was a good thing she’d mostly stockpiled the money he’d sent them over the past couple years; his medical bill was steep, and that was even with him living in the Den and them handling any of the day to day, just taking him into the hospital for checks every four days.  It was going to be _months_ before he was okay… she was just glad he was _conscious_ , if not always all there.  With Shov, wondering if he was even going to wake up had been the worst part. 

            Speaking of Shov, she’d believed in the princess before the riot, but after the woman had taken it upon herself to save a member of their family no matter the cost in return for Katrien helping to save her bodyguard…  Relena Darlian-Peacecraft could declare herself Empress of California tomorrow and Liss would yell at anyone who laughed.  That woman was going to fix the mess the world had gotten up to, and that was that.  You had to have something to believe in, to be willing to fight for if it came down to the wire, and the princess had firmly nestled her way into the love of every single one of the Devils with Shov’s life. 

            …Of course, it was also a good thing she wasn’t likely to go declaring herself something insane.  That would get…  well, it wouldn’t end well. 

            “Mama’s home!” Karina sang as she trudged into the garage and made a beeline for her daughter. 

            “You’re not my mother,” Duo protested dryly.  Melissa grinned, listening to Renee squeal delightedly as Rina presumably took her from her uncle and bounced her up to face level to rub noses with her, like she always did. 

            Rina blithely ignored the comment, continuing to talk in the overly sweet voice she used when her attention was on her daughter and everyone else was a distraction she only vaguely noticed.  “Do you need me to take care of anything while I’m here?”  She made a few kissy noises.  “I brought some food from the pub.  Yeah?”  She giggled, her voice going even more cutesy.  “Yes I did!  Yes, yes!  But _you_ can’t have any of it.  Nope!” 

            The baby continued to make happy noises anyway.  For all that she’d made quick work of the art of crawling and was starting to even run a few steps, she didn’t know any words yet, from what they could tell. 

            “Go see if Will wants any,” Duo suggested. 

            “Alright!  Let’s go, huh baby?  Uncle Will’s probably hungry, and-” 

            Honestly, at a certain point, Melissa just had to tune out the babble.  She was happy that Karina was enjoying being a mom, and constantly talking to the child was a good way to go about encouraging her language skills, but she didn’t need to listen to Karina dictate every step they took up the stairs in exciting detail. 

            “How’s that coming?”  Duo asked after a moment. 

            “Alright.”  She debated for a moment.  “Give me another half hour and I think I’ll be good.” 

            “Cool.  I’m going to walk Rina home in a few, but then I’m going out for a while.” 

            She frowned, then slid back out from under the engine to meet his eyes and determine how serious this was.  Not too bad, she figured from his expression, but not innocent either.  “Anything I can help with?” 

            He bit his lip for a moment, but shook his head.  “You could, but I’ve got this, for now.”  Meeting her eyes, he added, “Later this week, though…  maybe.” 

            _Reconnaissance, then,_ she decided, nodding to show him she understood.  The city was doing a damn fine job of going back to the pits, and he’d made it his personal mission to prevent that as much as was possible.  The corruption within the militia hadn’t gotten any worse since the uptake of spring, but it hadn’t actually gotten any better than it had been in November either.  The newness and civic pride had officially worn off by then, replaced by power and privilege.  They still did more than the cops had been for years, but…  Amsterdam was honestly run almost entirely by gang influence again. 

            That wasn’t entirely a bad thing, really, with how the power shifts had happened.  Most of the old gangs, like the Devils, were more interested in keeping things peaceable.  The newer ones, formed mostly out of the new refugees, didn’t understand the prosperity of the previous summer well enough to give a damn, which was potentially a problem, but they were still small, which meant they couldn’t do much.  So for now it was okay, but it was definitely a balance. 

            And it was a balance that no one but them seemed to be trying to maintain.  Which meant it needed maintenance.  And she need only look at how filthy her hands were right now to remind herself how messy ‘maintenance’ of any kind could get.  It was only a matter of time before something would require a more… _forceful_ approach. 

            “Just keep me in the loop,” she returned agreeably.  “Better over-prepped than under, all that.” 

            “Always.” 

-

***

-

**July 24 th 198 – Friday – Bialowieza Forest, Poland**

            Marlé couldn’t seem to decide if she was awed or freaked out.  “ _In_ there?” 

            Odin supposed he could understand why.  This part of the forest was swamp-like and had something of a foreboding air about it, and honestly, he was relatively sure that anything related to the word “swamp” didn’t give a good impression.  She’d been disbelieving of the height of the single Christmas tree up in L5, and this was an overgrown, primeval forest; from what he remembered, some of the trees further in would require five adults spreading their arms as far as possible to encircle the trunk.  “Terrain varies,” he noted to her pointedly.  “You have cities down already.” 

            Hilde made an irritated noise, stepping forward.  “Don’t push the kid if she’s spooked, geeze.  I’ll come with you.” 

            “I’m not scared!” Marlé protested.  “I’ve just never been anywhere like this before!” 

            Hilde shrugged, beginning to enter the tree line proper.  “It’s fine.  Really, not a big deal.” 

            Odin frowned.  He glanced back at Lucrezia, who was pursing her lips, before focusing back on Marlé with what he hoped was a meaningful look.  She scowled and followed the dark-haired woman.  “I’m not losing out just because I haven’t done it before.  There’s got to be a first time for everything.” 

            …He was almost tempted to let Hilde keep going on blindly and not let them know they were heading in the wrong direction.  With how wild this old forest was, though, it struck him as a bad idea.  Not everything that lived here was _small_.  Shaking his head, he jogged to catch up while Lucrezia chuckled softly. 

            Hilde, meanwhile, seemed offended that Marlé had risen to the challenge for some reason.  Narrowing her eyes at him, she gestured deeper into the area.  “Are you sure you can find anything in this shit?  I can’t even tell where we’re going to _walk_.” 

            “The ground, generally,” he noted, looking around to settle his bearings.  It had been a while, but…  _Mm._  

            “ _Where_?” Hilde demanded. 

            _…That was a rhetorical question, right?_   He wasn’t sure he wanted to answer even if it wasn’t.  Instead, he just started walking. 

            She’d either figure it out, or not. 

            After a moment, Marlé made a happy sort of noise.  “I can’t see my feet!  Awesome!” 

            “That’s not a good thing,” Hilde retorted. 

            He glanced down and supposed he could understand the argument on some level; the greenery was dense but still flexible, so he couldn’t see his lower calf or beyond.  _Was that what she meant?_  

            “You really don’t get over stuff, do you?” Marlé asked suddenly.  “That, like… explains a lot.” 

            “Are you seriously lecturing me?” 

            “Just…  let it go, huh?  Ease off.  Enjoy the… trees.” 

            A splash; one of them had stepped into marshier ground. 

            “And the tree water,” Marlé added. 

            “Swamp,” Odin corrected. 

            “Right, enjoy the swamp water.  You don’t see this stuff every day, yeah?”  A few moments later, the younger girl had caught up to him and hopped onto a fallen tree to walk along.  “Okay, that could’ve gone way better,” she muttered for his ears alone. 

            “The word swamp has poor connotations,” he admitted. 

            She smiled up at the canopy above her.  “It’s actually pretty cool, though.  Weird, but cool.  How would you climb these things?” 

            “When we get to my spot, there should be a few examples to try on.” 

            “No hints?” 

            “Like anything else, but scratchy.”  He considered.  “And sticky.” 

            “Huh.” 

            He looked back over his shoulder to his other charge.  “Are you okay?” 

            Hilde gave him a rather irritated look, but just sighed.  “Yeah, just… waterlogged.  How far is it?” 

            “Just up over there,” he assured her, focusing back on Marlé as a different thought occurred to him.  “Check for inhabitants before you climb.” 

            “Like… birds?” 

            “And cats.” 

            “Cats?”  This from Hilde. 

            “Fairly big cats,” he explained, holding out his arms to show the rough size. 

            “…Did you read this somewhere?”  There was a new edge to Hilde’s tone. 

            “No.” 

            “What do they look like?” Marlé asked happily, examining their surroundings more closely. 

            “Yellow-brown, black spots, long ears.”  He frowned.  “White… goatee thing.” 

            “Neat.” 

            “You just admitted there are large, wild _cats_ living in the trees, and you invited her to climb them?” the brunette demanded scathingly. 

            He frowned, glancing back at her.  “She’s making enough noise that she’s not going to surprise one.” 

            “So it’ll be _ready_?” 

            Finally he stopped and turned to face her.  “Have you ever spent time in the wilderness?”  At the short twitch of her head to indicate no, he sighed.  “Animals don’t like people.  They don’t come near you unless they can’t avoid it.  Cats only _live_ in trees in jungles, and are _nocturnal_ everywhere.”  He shook his head and turned back around; he could see the thicket he’d buried the chip near.  “And they take a bullet about as well as anything else.” 

-

***

**-**

**Bern, Switzerland**

            “This will cripple my business,” Platt argued incredulously, waving about the newly minted financial policy. 

            Relena offered him a sweet smile – the one that reminded people of the fact that she was barely eighteen – and Mailin forced herself to stay stoic.  She was relatively sure she was out of the CEO’s immediate line of sight, but it was a good practice to keep all the same.  “Cripple?” she asked, all bright-eyed concern.  “How might it accomplish that, sir?” 

            Platt smiled back, seeming to think he could charm the young woman.  “It’s a matter of cost and effect, Minister.  If you push these ‘guidelines’ of yours through, then I’m afraid I would be unable to maintain my people’s salaries, or I would have to resort to subpar supplies-” 

            “Oh, that reminds me, I’d almost forgotten!” Relena interrupted cheerfully.  “Your corporation’s audit begins tomorrow.  They’re necessary for everyone, now, and since I was already over here, the timing seemed to be of greater convenience for all involved.  You see, I’ve come across so much unscrupulous trade in just the short time since my promotion that I feel it’s necessary for those who have held to their morals to be rewarded.” 

            He seemed to stutter at that.  “Rewarded?” 

            “With unparalleled renown for gentlemen such as yourselves, along with government resources to account for your new investments,” she explained easily. 

            Platt frowned.  “My apologies if I’m being forward, Lady Peacecraft, but exactly where would such resources be coming from?  The Regime is still young, and-” 

            “It’s Darlian-Peacecraft, Mr. Platt,” Relena corrected firmly.  “But as for the assets I mentioned, why, naturally any additional resources will be secured from those businesses who will be forcibly disbanded for fraud, embezzlement, false advertising, and other offenses of power.  All goods and skilled labor will be appropriately consolidated, and if expansion becomes a viable option for those still trading, a stipend will be provided to help stimulate growth.”  She frowned as if thinking.  “Though I do wonder how subpar supplies might be an issue in the business of banking.”  The bright smile came back.  “No matter, though, I’m sure it will all become clear once I’ve read through your annual reports.”  Tossing her hair slightly, the princess added, “In any case, the policy has already been through the Circle of Ministers my brother left in power during his absence, and passed into legislature two days ago.  I’m afraid there’s nothing malleable or transient about this new bill.” 

            The man seemed at a loss for words, and knowing what she did, Mai couldn’t really blame him.  Relena had resolved to go after the more corrupt international organizations first, and had had little trouble in convincing her fellow Ministers that she had her brother’s full approval.  Her history of successes thus far in the field of economics helped too, but a casual offer to discuss the matter with Milliardo Peacecraft in a video conference over dinner went a long way towards turning the lackeys of the more capricious Peacecraft to the younger’s will. 

            The fact that there was nothing quite like good will between the prince and princess was very far from common knowledge, and she had decided that she had no issues with manipulating that perception to her own benefit.  As she had put it ‘they’ll believe it no matter what I do, in any case.’ 

            The innocent until proven ruthless tactic that Relena had picked up for her more recent dealings with Romefeller family members was also priceless. 

            “So you see,” Relena continued in a more neutral tone, “I have no plans to ‘cripple’ anyone.  Either you will be exalted, or you will face absolute destruction.”  Her smile was meaningful.  “And I am not in the habit of making idle threats, sir.  Therefore, I will leave you to your affairs for now, and tomorrow morning, my men and accountants will begin their work.  I suggest you tie up any loose ends, lest your friends find any of your indiscretions… pervasive.  I am not so heartless as to disregard negotiations, but not everyone cares to be so generous.”  Her smile, then was, bright and startlingly genuine.  “Do we understand each other?” 

            “…Of course.  Yes, of course, Lady P-  Lady Darlian-Peacecraft.” 

            “Excellent.  I’m sure we’ll have occasion to speak again later.” 

-

***

-

**Space – Between L1 and L4**

            There was one thing, really, that was singularly _wrong_ with warfare in space. 

            If you weren’t near the main traffic lines, you were invisible. 

            It made the area poor for both offense and defense.  You couldn’t reliably see troops coming, you couldn’t reliably know what you were walking into…  The only ones who reaped any benefits out of the natural backdrop were those employing guerilla tactics.  After all, there was a reason the colonies had decided to use _gundams_ as their absolute tactic. 

            In space, it wasn’t that strange of an idea that five incredibly superior mobile suits could conquer.  And they had, at least initially, done a decent job of proving the tactic on Earth. 

            “Shut it down,” Vitorie Winner ordered after a moment, standing at the heart of the circuitry of the way station.  When the markers on the main trade routes went dark, commerce would rely on the old star mapping methods and be fine, if hassled.  The Regime troops tended to rely on an autopilot more often than not, though, and might not realize that they were spinning off on decoys right away... and once they did work it out, they probably wouldn’t be sure which way was what for a spell. 

            If they were lucky, a few platoons would be outright lost.  At a minimum, it would take them a lot longer to navigate to the next colony cluster than it should. 

            Turning on her flashlight as the lights died, she whistled sharply.  “Let’s get moving, people.  We have another three stations before we’re done with this cycle.” 

-

***

-

**July 26 th 198 – Sunday – Frankfurt, Germany**

            Hilde pulled off her helmet and gratefully gulped in fresh air, ignoring how her sweaty bangs were sticking to her forehead.  That had been… a little close.  Fun as hell, but still just too damn narrow of a margin for comfort.  Vaguely, she noticed that Heero was sliding effortlessly from his place behind her, but the fact that he obviously wasn’t as stiff as she felt – _Bum leg my **ass** _ – was only a distant irritation.  He’d just been a passenger to have to account for.  Sure, he’d handled some of their pursuers with some well-placed shots, but that didn’t make her feel like she’d gone through any less of a wringer with her life as her sole prize.  She didn’t even care if they’d gotten the information they’d needed, at least not yet.  _I’m never stealing from a mafia again._  

            Okay, so she knew that was a lie.  She’d totally do it again.  But for the next five minutes, at least, she seriously meant it. 

            She looked down at the bike admiringly.  It was probably the nicest motorcycle she’d ever stolen – not from the mafia, just something that had been unbelievably handy.  _Damn_ fine performance.  It was too bad she couldn’t keep it, both because she had no way to transport it other than driving it, and because it, you know, belonged to somebody.  He’d get it back through the local police enforcement, militia if nothing else, if she left it here.  _I’ll make an anonymous call once I’ve put some distance down, just incase,_ she decided.  The owner had to be pretty cool, considering what a beautiful machine it was. 

            “That was nicely done,” Heero muttered as he started wiping the bike down. 

            Hilde frowned, suspicion spiking as she twisted to look over her shoulder at him.  “What?” 

            Those very deep blue eyes met hers, his expression becoming put upon.  _Patronizing_.  “That was some good driving.  Thank-you.”  He gestured towards her ass.  “Move.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  _Oh my fucking God, what, did playing backseat cramp his style that bad or something?  I did good enough.  I got us back out of there, didn’t I?  He didn’t have to shoot **that** many people…_  

            Or had he?  She hadn’t really been paying attention at the time. 

            Swinging off the bike and trying to not show how much her damn thighs ached, she couldn’t help but snark, “But of course, I’m sure you could have done better.” 

            Those eyes flicked back towards hers, incredulous.  “Have you ever seen me ride?” 

            She frowned, realizing she hadn’t.  “No.” 

            “Have you ever even _heard_ of me driving a motorcycle?” 

            “No.” 

            “Then how do you even know if I _can_?” 

            She gaped at him.  Her heart might even have stuttered.  “You _can’t_?” 

            And then, he just looked annoyed.  “The point is that you don’t know.” 

            _Asshole._   He’d just been winding her up.  _Again._   “So you’re just fucking with me, even though I was right.”  He didn’t bother answering, just focusing on cleaning off anywhere they might have left prints or DNA, which was answer enough.  _Couldn’t even muster a comeback._   “Oh, so now you’re just going to ignore me, because I won?” she demanded. 

            “Hn.”  He didn’t look up as he moved to the handlebars.  “Has anyone ever told you that you have an abrasive personality?” 

            She snorted.  “Seriously?”  That, coming from _him_?  _Unbelievable._  

            “Or that you’re highly insecure?” 

            She scowled; in all honesty, people’d always been quick to tell her she was an arrogant bitch, so yeah, not really.  “No.” 

            “That’s one thing solved, then.” 

            “Excuse me?!”  She couldn’t help falling into an aggressive stance; it was instinct. 

            The fact that she did it, though, meant that that was right when Noin and the others pulled up with the car.  “Are you two fighting?” the general asked in a bored tone. 

            “No!” Hilde snapped, forcing her muscles to relax even as she could feel a blush creeping up her face. 

            Marlé threw open the back door before Noin had come all the way to a stop and scooted back to the middle of the back seat, smiling excitedly up at her.  _As if **that** makes being crammed in the back seat like a little kid any better._   She didn’t bother smiling back as she ducked in and slammed the door shut.  This was _not_ her fucking day.  Or _month_ , while she was at it. 

            “Apparently,” Heero muttered in that irritating monotone as he moved for the car, “Telling her she drives as well as Trowa is an insult.” 

            _…What?_  

            “You know, I’m not sure that it’s too great of a rubric,” Noin drawled.  “You guys _trashed_ that bike.” 

            He started to snicker as he slid into the passenger seat.  “But it made such an impressive launch pad.” 

            Noin snorted as she put the car back in gear.  “I’m not saying it didn’t.” 

            “…It _was_ decidedly unusable afterwards.” 

            “Exactly.” 

            “…It didn’t crash until after we were off it.” 

            “Always a good thing.” 

            _So was he bullshitting me or not?_ Hilde debated as she pulled her seatbelt across her chest.  _Maybe he actually meant it…  It wasn’t as if there was anyone else there to save face for or-_

_**Fuck!**   _

            She’d been alone with Heero Yuy, actually talking with him, and she hadn’t told him about Duo.  Just three damn words, ‘Duo’s in Amsterdam’, and she would have been good.  No, just _two_ , ‘Duo’s alive’. 

            _…Fuck._   What a fucking day. 

-

***

-

**July 29 th 198 – Wednesday – L3**

            _This is always how it starts,_ Cathy thought jadedly as she fought to not glower at the soldiers.  _Strangers, then uniforms, then guns and bombs… next thing you know, it’s another revolution._   As far as she could tell, nothing had ever changed for all of it, but try telling _them_ that.  Didn’t matter if you’d seen at least three of their “revolutions” fail – people kept trying. 

            She could never figure out anymore if the hot feeling in her chest over that was just anger, or part pride too.  After Trowa… well, that got a lot harder to tell apart.  He was one of those people who refused to get all beaten down about it, no matter what happened to him.  You just couldn’t help but like him a little for that, after everything he’d been through. 

            Even if it _was_ a little pride, though, that didn’t make her not angry about it.  It didn’t matter if she’d managed to get Trowa, little Triton, back.  Her parents were still dead because of war, and Trowa was hardly the man Triton would have become if they hadn’t lost him in that air raid.  Him not remembering it all just made it worse; she got to _imagine_ what had happened to him to turn him into that heartless clown she’d met in 195. 

            “Sorry for the intrusion, Miss,” a soldier offered politely as she glared at him.  “We’ll be along soon enough.” 

            “After you take our _supplies_ , I bet,” she returned sourly.  “You make a _handsome_ highway robber at least, I’ll give you that.” 

            “ _Catherine_!” hissed the manager, aghast. 

            He usually was, but really, he knew better than expect her to behave for these people.  He’d have hid her away in the caravan if he’d thought it would do any real damage – it wasn’t like she’d ever _not_ been mouthy. 

            “We’ll pay for the supplies,” the soldier argued earnestly.  “We’re not robbing anyone.” 

            “Oh yeah?”  She looked him up and down, worrying at the inside of her mouth, trying to decide if he was half as honest as he looked.  The sweet-looking ones were always the most trouble: just look at Trowa and his friends.  

            This one was more brawn, though – she hadn’t been making it up about the handsome. 

            She let a smirk cross her mouth, leaning forward with her hands on her hips, giving him a good look down the neck of her tank top.  A little feminine persuasion usually greased the gears a bit.  “How much?” 

-

***

-

**July 30 th 198 – Thursday – Dublin, Ireland – Trinity College Library**

            _“I don’t know, I guess the past just strikes me as really important.  It makes us who we are, right?  Everybody that you really knew over the years… they’re important.”_

            “I can see that,” Odin agreed quietly, moving casually into the entrance lobby of the old building.  His earpiece was obvious enough that it wouldn’t matter if someone noticed him talking to himself; they would assume it was for his phone, not a radio. 

            _“You don’t agree?”_

            If she sounded a little less petulant, he wouldn’t have had any problems talking the theory over.  He agreed with the basics, but hadn’t bothered to really explore it yet – it was a valid topic for conversation.  Over the past few weeks, however, Hilde seemed to be almost going out of her way to irritate him.  She’d try to get him to talk, then was annoyed no matter what he said.  She challenged anything one of them said, with the same end results.  Incessantly.  And at this point, he was positive that she was actively following him.

            The fact that Lucrezia and Xutao didn’t seem to think her behavior unusual was… unhelpful.  She evidently wanted to prove some point or other, but so long as he couldn’t break his proximity to her, the urge to tell her to either say her piece in its entirety or _shut up_ was steadily rising.  The only thing actually holding him back at this point was the sure fact that such a statement would have no noticeable effect whatsoever.  Duo hadn’t ever taken well to being told to be quiet, and he dreaded that giving her the same directive would have a similar effect: of increasing the chatter in both mass and volume. 

            And this woman was starting to make him consider how similar she might be to Duo – Duo on _amphetamines_.  The mood swings matched eerily well.  He was willing to admit he didn’t have a very broad social education, but he also didn’t think he was overreaching with the comparison. 

            …He never wanted to see Duo on any breed of upper drug.  He was also fairly sure he never wanted to see Hilde ever again after this trip was done with. 

            And yet he was fairly sure, again, that it was somehow going to happen anyway, and he should focus on acclimating.  Duo’s habits hadn’t irritated him at all by the time they were both on _Peacemillion_ …  Maybe it would just…  _Like Relena._  

            No, Relena had changed over the course of that year, and continued on to become more like Lucrezia from what he could tell from the news feeds. 

            He was beginning to see a depressing trend in the women he came across, suggesting that this was a hormonal phase that could last several years before leveling back into sanity, and all indicators suggested Marlé was about to enter it.  He was, at this point, desperately hoping he had too small of a sample size for the conclusion to be accurate.  Marlé had been back to herself since she met Lucrezia… 

            This was something he might have asked Leia about, if Marlé hadn’t closed that line of communication for the time being.  He had promised he wouldn’t lie to the woman when it regarded her daughter’s welfare, and he had been serious about avoiding the thunderstorm that would erupt over the girl’s introduction to his ‘friends’.  Unfortunately, he wouldn’t say that Marlé’s tactic – waiting to tell her until it was patently obvious no harm had come of the association – was a poor choice.  In any case, if she was making her own decisions, he was going to let her make them, and she’d figure out how she handled repercussions through her own experiences. 

            _“Heero?”_

            That was something else he was trying to work out.  He honestly didn’t care what she called him, Heero worked fine, but he was starting to think – from the others’ reactions to her use of it – that it was _meant_ to be another barb. 

            “Past experience builds us into who we are, yes, agreed,” he returned before she could say something else _again_.  “Relevancy?”  He understood it was necessary for Hilde to be watching the surveillance net instead of Lucrezia because the younger woman needed to learn how to do it with some of her mentor’s fluency while under her watch, but being used as an obstacle course was beginning to wear on him. 

            _“Are you kidding me?  What the hell do you mean, **relevancy**?”  _

            He stopped walking, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  The urge to just turn the radio off was becoming all too tempting. 

            Evidently, she caught the body language from one of the cameras.  _“What?”_   The tone was rather daring. 

            Clenching his jaw, he smoothly moved forward again.  There were fewer students than he remembered from three years ago, but still more than enough to serve as camouflage.  In his opinion, the habitability of Ireland was entirely questionable, considering the weather, but if they’d held out this long, he figured they deserved the place.  Being stubborn about something could go a lot further for a cause than most people seemed to think.  _Training,_ he reminded himself.  _It’s training.  Just think of it as building tolerance._  

            In which case, he should probably have the damn conversation.  “Explain how this discussion is relevant to the current situation,” he suggested. 

            _“You’re blending in, right?  You’re dressed like these people, you’re walking like them, and if one of them tried to talk to you, you’d respond the right way.  From what I know, you didn’t bother with that practically at all three years ago, so why are you now?  What happened to change what you can do, or at least what you **will** do?”  _

            He considered that, but he’d already figured that one out, at least, last year.  “Duo proved that this way, on average, works better.”  He’d only bothered to start _using_ it because he didn’t always have the physical capacity to handle the side effects of a job more sloppily done on the social end, though.  There had stopped being any room for discrepancies he could just brute force his way through if it came down to it; the value of Duo’s ability to pass more or less unremarked – despite his very distinct braid – had become far more important after he started to rebuild his life. 

            Then there had been Dasha…  No, Moira had been the first to pull at his interest for no practical reason; Dasha had been a venture into entirely new territory and only stood out in his mind for that reason.  Then finding Marlé and the development of their relationship, the mutual give and take… That had been purely enjoyable, fulfilling, on a level deeper than he had experienced since Odin’s death.  Moira had been the first to start edging into that arena, but Marlé had made it… permanent.  And he was far more happy, content, than he remembered being even as a young child, because of it. 

            _“I wish I’d recorded that statement for posterity,”_ Hilde remarked.  _“I’m not sure Duo will believe you actually said that.”_  

            Duo had hardly been the start of it, though, just a more recent example.  His father had worked as an assassin by the same tactics; it was counter-intuitive to see beyond an average, easygoing exterior, and he had always _known_ that… he just hadn’t really _cared_ until recently.  It had become important, though, and Duo’s example had not only been more recent, but a more age-appropriate template. 

            _“Anyway, chain of events, right?  If you hadn’t run into OZ literally as you were coming in atmo at the start of Operation Meteor, then you probably wouldn’t have run into Relena outside of school, and Duo said you two first met because you crash-landed in the ocean off Japan and he found your suit.”_

            …If Zechs hadn’t shown up when he did to fight, that day, he would have shot down the shuttle that was in his flight path, and Relena had been _on_ it.  Honestly, that was probably the reason Zechs had been in the area; he’d always had a thing about protecting her from a far removed position.  The impact of Relena’s death on the timeline would have been dramatic in a likely negative way, but…  That really didn’t relate too much back to Duo.  Considering what they were doing, if they hadn’t come across each other when they did, it wouldn’t have taken long before they met under different circumstances. 

            He smirked.  _Actually, considering our first encounter, it’s almost certain that we would have met under far **better** circumstances._  

            So, a poor example, but the idea was intriguing enough to play with.  If he hadn’t sustained such a severe injury during _Libra’s_ fall, he likely would not have had to adapt his tactics in such severe ways.  He would never have met the Sronas, and likely would never have caught Xutao’s trail and mistaken it for Wufei’s.  It had been pure chance – being in exactly the right place at the right time – that had led him to Mariemaia, and even if that had still lined up for other reasons…  He might not have noticed her, or stopped to help her, if he was as focused as he had been during the war. 

            Therefore, his injury had been crucial to his current position and mental state. 

            But it also was far from the whole of it.  When he had decided his current perspective was no longer going to be effective, he had fallen back on his father’s old advice to follow his emotions, and let that guide him where it may.  If that hadn’t been prominent in his mind… 

            _No, not relevant._   Every time in his life that he had been faced with situations he was unsure of how to approach, he had followed that ideal.  He had agreed to being made a Gundam pilot because it had felt like a direction he could focus, in the sudden blank landscape life had become with Odin’s death.  He had found peace in himself by offering himself up for judgment to all the families of the pacifists he had killed at New Edwards. Doing that had just felt like the right thing to do – the only way to move on without the regret that had plunged Odin into depression and eaten him alive to the point that he had tried to abandon his son on L3-X18999.  He had spoken so often of regret alongside the directive to follow his heart that the two had to be connected. 

            So much of his relationship with Marlé was modeled after his childhood… to the point that at this point in his life, it was tempting to say that almost everything about him was due to his father’s influence.  Then again, he imagined that was the usual way of it; parents were there _to_ shape and form you from infancy.  _Well, parents or whoever fills in the role emotionally._  

            He took a moment to consider the book stacks on the second floor, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket to consult incase he had an unseen audience.  The area he was entering was almost never consulted; it would be unusual for someone to either browse or know exactly how to navigate to find the reference he needed.  Making an obvious show of reading signs and referencing the paper in hand, he continued more slowly.  The concept of family, however natural it was to pick up, was… intricately bizarre.  Solving its inner workings had seemed possible at one point, but he was beginning to suspect that no one had a comprehensive answer. 

 

-

_“I need to be back with my family again,” Quatre announced, slumping in his chair and staring out the window.  “I’ve been away for so long, I’m not really sure who I am anymore.”_

_“So that’s where you’re headed next?” Odin asked as he picked up a piece of chicken._

_His friend was quiet for a moment, but then shook his head.  “I have my men to look after, and I need to revive my old network to do what they need of me.  That comes first.”_

_“What do you need?”  It sounded specific._

_“Forgery supplies,” Quatre admitted in a bland tone, waving one hand in a dismissive gesture.  “After everything in Cambyses, they need a way to move around legitimately.”  He focused back on Odin, gaze sharpening.  “Would you be willing to handle the digital end of things?  I’ve never been as good at that.”_

_Odin grinned as the idea of a trade occurred to him.  “If you teach Marlé,” he negotiated.  His ‘sister’ had told him she was interested in learning before, but he lacked the training for physical papers – at least, the high quality kinds._

_“That shouldn’t be a problem.”  Quatre relaxed further back into his chair and closed his eyes.  “I need to go to space to start, but I’ll need to come back to deliver them in any case.”_

_Odin thought briefly about offering to pick up that step, then dismissed it; Quatre wanted to handle it personally, or he would have asked.  “Marlé could come to you in space, if that’s easier.”_

_He opened his eyes and considered for a long moment, then shook his head.  “I won’t have to do anything too creative to get back through customs when I come back to Earth if I only have the supplies, compared to the finished product.”  He sighed.  “It’s just as well.  I want to see my sisters, but I’m not actually comfortable with the idea either.”  Letting out a broken chuckle, he added, “So this gives me the opportunity to run a little longer.”_

_Odin frowned.  “You want to see them, but you’re running from them.”_

_Quatre laughed.  “I’m running from **reality** ,” he clarified.  “When I face it, I’m going to have to acknowledge what I’ve done, who I’ve become… and how far short I fall of their expectations.”  He met Odin’s eyes.  “It’s something of a double-edged blade.  What they think will either lift me up or tear me to tatters, and I haven’t decided if I’m ready to hand myself over for judgment just yet.  I have too much that relies on me right now to risk letting justice take its due course.”  _

-

 

            He could understand the weight of that responsibility.  He had taken advantage of his ‘death’ after he self-destructed Wing to try and balance the scales; no one took up their concerns with the dead.  Giving himself over to the families of the pacifists had seemed not only logical, but innately right on a level he hadn’t felt for years.  But…  Quatre cared for the opinion of his family and those he was close to first.  Marlé, similarly, couldn’t care less what anyone outside her inner circle thought.  _And Odin…_   Odin couldn’t have cared less about anyone but _him_ , as far as he could remember.  His father would not have cared, if he had seen the girl Marlé had been about to freeze on some anonymous street. 

            _If Odin was still alive, would I have gone to him, instead of the families of the people I killed?_  

            It was hard to say.  If Odin hadn’t died, then he probably would never have been recruited into Operation Meteor.  He might never have tried to pilot MS at all.  He… 

            He didn’t know enough about his father to make an educated guess; he didn’t even know how old the man had been.  Would he have retired, by now?  It had never been about money…  Would they have joined the war effort in some way, then or now?  Odin had always insisted that he wasn’t actually his father… but he had never offered any sort of explanation either.  Despite the degree of influence the man had had on him, on what choices he made and who he had become because of those decisions…  He knew almost _nothing_ about the man. 

            That felt… wrong. 

            Turning down an aisle he knew no cameras covered, he grabbed one of the built-in ladders and pulled it along after him.  The lack of knowledge had never bothered him before, but now that he’d acknowledged it…  _Hn._  

            _“Are you just ignoring me now?”_

            …She’d just kept on talking, hadn’t she?  He smirked as he found the right place and started to climb the ladder.  _Oops._   “There’s something to be said for being concise,” he muttered into his earpiece, reaching for the book he wanted.  “Have you gotten to the point yet?” 

            She spluttered, and he took a moment to be amused at his choice.  The tomes surrounding him all concerned law, but in such a historic sense as to be useless.  However, they hadn’t been historic when written, and it was painstakingly legal in structure, as well as entirely obsolete.  If anyone wanted to look up the details of British law concerning textile exports before the After Colony calendar, they were going to look at the digital renditions that were easier to search. 

            He continued to tune Hilde out as he flipped the book open and turned to around the four hundred page mark, where three years ago he had used a razor to slice a centimeter deep square into the center of the pages to house a computer chip.  Quickly pocketing his prize, he closed the three-inch thick text and slid it back between its brothers on the shelf. 

            _Time to move on._

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands - New Renew  
**

            “I’m not sure if that sounds awesome or awful,” Amos muttered as he wandered into the room. 

            The volume was up loud enough that Duo could hear a feminine sort of giggle and agreement.  _“Well, it’s…  Europe, but… …trees!  …and then…”_  

            Because getting every fifth word of a conversation was just _that_ thrilling.  Sighing rather pointedly, he tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him.  _How did Melissa talked me into doing this part, again?_   Spoken language was one thing, but writing… 

            Shit, he was pretty sure he’d slipped into German again.  Or _was_ that how the Dutch spelled it?  Wasn’t it supposed to have those little… circle things above the o?  _Why is it that I can read this so much easier than write it?_

 _Oh yeah, because G never cared about that._   He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to own up to Melissa that he hadn’t learned how to _read_ , let alone write until he was eight or so, and that had only been in English.  He’d started picking up bits of Japanese on his own before Father Maxwell took him in, but that was just because the engineers at the soldier’s base he stole food from when he was younger had been from L1. 

            _…Was that h **supposed** to look sorta Russian, or did I just get distracted again?_   He didn’t think it was actually an h, the longer he looked at it…  but he couldn’t remember what it was _called_ either, just how to pronounce it. 

            “That sounds crazy.” 

            _“I know!  But…  fun.”_  

            He gripped the side of his head with one hand, staring at the page, seriously debating asking Amos if it was pure gibberish.  _Maybe he can write it…_   Melissa had asked him to do this because she was busy, what with having two jobs, and she hadn’t thought it was a big deal.  He _really_ didn’t _want_ it to be a big deal either. 

            “Well, no… but isn’t that a little dangerous?” 

            Was that a pouting noise?  Duo was pretty sure that was a pouting noise.  _Focus,_ he told himself irritably, staring back at the paper and trying to convince himself it made sense.  _…Shit._  

            “Who?  Uh… okay.  Bye.”  He looked up in time to see the boy pull the phone from his ear and stare at it, looking dismayed.  “Who’s Cory?” he muttered irritably. 

            Duo thought about asking for a moment, before deciding it was a bad idea.  The younger teenager shook his head and wandered back out of the room as randomly as he’d come in, muttering to himself.

            Duo sighed again, and started gathering his shit up.  _Will.  I’ll ask Will for help, and if the wording’s off because he’s high, at least it’ll be legible for Liss to fix._   God help him, but he’d get this _some_ semblance of done if it killed him. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Hey, Jack.” 

            His father hesitated on the other end of the line before asking, _“Are you okay?”_  

            Jake snorted, but couldn’t really blame the man for the sentiment.  “You’re probably the _last_ person I’d call if I wasn’t, you know.” 

            _“Well, yeah, but…  Ah, hell.  Hey, Jake.  What have you been up to?  You never call.”_

            It was enough of a try for normalcy that he felt no hostility in reciprocating.  “I’ve been really busy, honestly,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, willing himself to _relax_.  “I’m cramming so much politicking and statistics into my head it’s coming out my ears.  We went and saw Des and Cassie a couple of weeks back, though.” 

            Jack, if his tone was anything to go by, began to relax too.  _“Yeah, he mentioned.  He’d been waiting and waiting for you to come by.  Didn’t want me to say anything.”_  

            Jake blew out a breath, rubbing a hand over his eyes.  “I probably would have blown up at you if you had.  I’ve…”  He sighed, and tried again.  “I think when I’m upset about something, part of the way I cope is distorting my time concepts.  I just… stop letting myself think about it, and the next thing I know, it’s been a year since I talked to somebody.”  He ran his tongue over his teeth, then added, “I really only meant to put you off until I got my head straight, after everything that happened with _Libra_.” 

            _“…I’m not sure anybody can ever get their head straight again after something like **Libra** ,”_ Jack muttered after a moment. 

            Jake made a face.  “Yeah…  I’ve been figuring that out.  Anyway, I just realized, after seeing Des, that I’ve been letting the world pass me by while I focused on my personal shit, and…  I’m not okay with that.  I might have been when I was younger, but now…”  He shook his head.  “There’s just too much out there that I’m connected to for that to work anymore.” 

            After running back into Adelia and Daniella had caused him to look into other old acquaintances, he hadn’t been able to ignore just how _off_ his pacing seemed to be, these days.  Maybe it was just the times, and his distance in peacetime had been perfectly acceptable, but after what Zechs had done, it was unlikely that that level of peace would return until he was old enough to have grandchildren.  _If then._  

            _“That’s good.  I mean, that you noticed, and…”_

            “Yeah,” he agreed before the man could fumble his words more.  “I guess it is.” 

            Jack hesitated another long moment before apparently deciding to plunge on ahead.  _“That was always something I was worried about, you know?  You never really seemed to attach.”_  

            “You mean I never really attached to the things you arbitrarily decided I ought to,” Jake amended, not really feeling the heat in the words.  He was too damn worn out to be upset; that was actually a large part of how he’d managed to work himself up to an apology in the first place. 

            _“I was worried,”_ Jack returned with exaggerated slowness, _“Because Odin was never interested in making any roots.  Those five years after your mother died, I don’t think you lived in one place for more than two weeks.”_  

            “And I _still_ don’t see why that particular fact is supposed to be relevant to my mental state,” the colonel pointed out tiredly.  “Seriously, Jack, it’s been over a decade now.  I’m pretty sure if I had some deep insecurity about where I sleep, it would have shown up by now.  If anything, I’m _more_ confident about my surroundings than anyone I’ve ever come across.  Do we have to do this right now?”  He slumped in his seat and propped his feet up on the coffee table.  “He raised Mom too, didn’t he?  He may have been unorthodox, but I think if he was as bad a parent as you make him out to be, you never would’ve had us.” 

            This conversation was remarkably easier to have over the phone.  He didn’t have to restrain himself from backhanding the man for spouting bullshit like it was gospel truth while they were in separate countries, and that in turn made it a lot easier to stay calm. 

            Contrary to what his father thought, he _did_ understand that some aspects of his childhood had been very fucked up.  However, as he was now the sole survivor of said childhood, he hardly saw any point in incriminating the dead.  His uncle had loved him absolutely, and he had never doubted that the man had done the best he could imagine for his boys.  It _really_ didn’t have to be any more complicated than that. 

            _“Your mother wasn’t capable of accurately handling anti-aircraft artillery at **any** point in her life, let alone before her eighth birthday,”_ Jack argued.  _“But no, we **don’t** have to get into it.  I’m getting to be a tired old man who’s sick of the fact that his kid can’t stand him.  I’m trying to work on changing that.  So really…  How are you holding up?  I never really thought you might get into politics, even after you crawled into bed with Khushrenada.” _  

            _You have no idea, old man,_ Jake thought idly as he tried to compose a response that wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the insinuations, either crude – and entirely unintended, he was sure – or just insulting.  Jack Miller, as a proud citizen of L1, had _never_ liked that his son had joined OZ.  He’d been entirely convinced, for years, that Jake had only done it to piss him off. 

            That had been a fantastic perk, but really?  It had just given him access to the resources he needed.  That had changed over the years, and he’d accordingly kept what things he liked – the people – and moved on. 

            Jack had made the mistake at that point of declaring he was glad Jake was done with his rebellious teenager stage.  He’d quickly dissuaded him of that fact – putting him in the hospital, if memory served – and proceeded disappear for a good eighteen months. 

            …He wasn’t about to say that his subpar familial relations were any less than equally his fault.  He probably ought to claim the lion share of the blame, if he were honest, but he wasn’t in the mood, and something had to be said for the fact that despite repeat performances, Jack never backed down or tried different tactics.  It said something for sheer _obstinacy_ that for the past fifteen years, he had refused to even meet his son halfway on any of their disputes, despite the consequences. 

            If Jake had been less capable of just leaving him in the dust for long periods of time, the tactic might actually have worked.  For all that he could be tenacious when he wanted to, Jake was more inclined to ditch a poor showing and move on than whittle away at it like a dog with a bone. 

            It was a quality he had come to reluctantly admire in the man, if he were honest.  He was more a fan of having a finger in every pot, personally, but he could understand the merits of other approaches.  Bullheadedness tended to rub him the wrong way, but… _Eh._  

            “You _do_ realize I got into politics when I was thirteen?” he asked after a long moment, “and that it had nothing to do with Treize?  I’ve just never been flashy about it.” 

            _“Oh?”_   He sounded genuinely intrigued.  Almost… _happy_ , oddly. 

            “It’s easier to get shit done when the opposition doesn’t know there’s a target _to_ shoot, let alone where it’s at.”  Heero Yuy – the original, the politician, not the gundam pilot – had been a prime example of why being open with your enemies was a bad idea.  Then a few years later, King Zachary Peacecraft had done an _excellent_ job in cementing the reality of that folly. 

            Thank _God_ Relena had grown into some common sense, instead of just running with what she’d inherited. 

            _“Sounds interesting,”_ Jack offered. 

            “Yeah, but the first rule of politics is that you don’t kiss and tell.”  _Unless it brings entirely unprecedented advantage, of course._   “So the main issues I’ve been having lately are a mix of walking myself into being a personal assistant, which I’ve finally solved by foisting it onto someone else, and getting everyone I recruited trained up to acceptable levels.  My men have potential, and some of them are doing great, but if I hadn’t developed ethics somewhere along the way, I’d be tempted to regularly _beat_ one of them into submission.  Well, that and the fact that it might destroy his spirit, which is counterproductive.  I’m half considering letting him go, but he knows too much about our main premises for me to feel comfortable with that.”  He shook his head, considering the puzzle of Carlisle.  “So I’m being forced to come up with a more creative behavioral modification regimen.” 

            There was a long silence on the other end of the line.  Finally, _“You consider regular **beatings** a behavioral modification therapy.”_  

            “It’s a time-proven technique,” Jake pointed out.  “And it works relatively well for certain situations.”  _Like with Zechs._   Though realistically, he probably shouldn’t have been able to get away with that…  But for some reason OZ officers dismissed stupid teenage boy fights as normal, and Zechs had been too proud to admit how bad it got… and Lu hadn’t stepped in and demanded he drop it until _after_ the asshole started flinching when Jake got in his personal space. 

            He stretched out across his couch, trying to relax a little as he admitted, “I have morals and stuff now that have led me to believe in actual responsibility for my subordinates, though, so it’s kinda non-optional.” 

            _“…But it **is** okay for other people?”  _

            He sighed.  “For the record, you don’t really fit into any of my categories for how I treat people.” 

            _“I don’t?”_

            Hm, he actually _was_ in an honest mood.  That was surprising.  “It’s the main reason you get under my skin so bad,” he admitted.  “Also, I don’t have a different mindset for when I’m… soldiering, for lack of a better word.  Acceptable degrees of violence is organized right next to who to be how friendly with; almost everyone has the potential to move into ‘enemy’ territory, and… yeah.”  When you worked in espionage, those lines could get dangerously blurry. 

            He grimaced and rubbed at his eyes, sitting back up.  _Fuck, **Mitchell**._   He hadn’t really _wanted_ to do that… but fuck, he _had_ , and that was that.  His hold on his temper hadn’t been this bad since he was fourteen. 

            He’d be willing to thank _anything_ that Relena could pull him out of a rage as easy as Lu had always been able to. 

            “Why the hell did I have to get your temper?” he half whined.  “I do criminally stupid shit when I see red.”  It wasn’t like he’d ever been exposed to temper in his younger years…  he’d been too young to remember his parents fighting, and his uncle had been so impossible to ruffle it could make you want to tear your hair out. 

            Jack snorted.  _“Nature over nurture, I guess.  Your mom… when she got going, it was like trying to stop a runaway train.  Hell of a woman, your mother…  didn’t take shit from anybody.”_  

            “Except you.” 

            _“I seem to remember her tossing me out on my ass on more than one occasion,”_ his father noted wryly.  _“Everything with us was either…  hot or cold.  Never much in between.  She could be sentimental and vengeful at the same time in a downright terrifying way; your brother’s a damn fine example of **that**.”_  

            …And the other half of why he’d convinced himself to call Jack was because he knew from experience that he wouldn’t be able to _not_ think about Junior right now anyway.  That and Jack was always willing to tell him stories about his mom… 

            Shit, he knew it was ridiculous, but he did _not_ like to hear Jack talk about Junior.  Talking about Odin rubbed him the wrong way most of the time – thinking his uncle’s actual _name_ set him off half the time, and fuck if _that_ wasn’t yet another mark of how fucked up his childhood was… 

            But Jack talking about _his_ little brother was… _wrong_. 

            “You tore us apart piece by piece, that year,” he muttered, unable to stop.  “We were a family, and when you ripped me away, it _broke_ him.”  He licked his lips.  “Did it make you happy, to finally be able to hurt him back?” 

            _“Jake…”_

            “He was never the same again, you know.  I could barely get him to talk to me again, and every time, he was more and more locked up in his own head.  I don’t even want to think about what that did to Junior.  But you get to act like it wasn’t so bad, since you never had to see what happened to your _other_ kid because you were selfish.  We’ll never really know for sure, so you can just skate the blame, yeah?”  He took another deep breath before just giving up.  “Fuck, I can’t do this.  Don’t call me back.”  Hanging up before the other man could get a word in edgewise, he dropped the phone and pulled his knees up to his chest so he could drop his head on them. 

            Sometimes, he could convince himself that he could forgive Jack.  Logically, he understood that Jack couldn’t really be held responsible for Odin’s getting himself and Junior killed; four years between incidents was a hell of a long shot from cause to effect.  But something deep in his uncle’s mind had _shattered_ over that fucking custody battle, and… hell.  He knew he was a psycho about this all sometimes, but… every August, it just felt _raw_. 

            His mom had died in August, after telling him to always take care of his brother.  A stranger who insisted he was his _real_ father had taken him away from everything he’d known in August, five years later.  Jack had _made_ him fail his mother that day…  Then Odin had turned up dead and Junior gone without a trace almost exactly four years after that.  The month was fucking _cursed_. 

            At this rate, everything with Lena would go up in flames this month too.  It would have been a decade without anything too serious, if it didn’t, and that was probably asking for too much.  Shit, he’d fucking _attacked_ David three weeks ago…  Maybe it had just started early this year, to make up for lost time. 

            Junior should’ve been turning nineteen next week. 

            …And now he was going to have to call Jack back to apologize _again_.  Though that probably needed to wait another month or two if he didn’t want it to just turn into _another_ fuck-up he had to apologize for. 

            Damn it all, but he fucking _missed_ David right now.  He missed Lu so bad it hurt, but it was an old ache; Dave was fresh, and entirely his own fault. 

            And like every year, he missed Odin’s steady presence more than anything. 

            He was so wrapped up in his misery he almost missed the sound of Relena coming downstairs.  “Jake?  Are you in here?” 

            For a brief moment, he considered not answering.  Relena…  He’d lost so much of what he loved about Relena in his tangle of loyalties, and yet she was always there, tantalizingly within reach but untouchable. 

            He was going to _burn_ …  It was so _perfect_ , but he’d handily designed his noose with every step he took towards her, and was closer to hanging himself with it by the day. 

            Could he live with himself if he just… chose?  Gave in?  Could _she_? 

            _Hard to say, and impossible to turn back from._  

            “Yeah, I’m here,” he called back, standing up and shifting his shoji screens to leave his private area of her bedroom.  Her blouse was a deep scarlet today, and fit her curved form nearly as well as the dark grey pencil skirt she’d donned that morning.  _I should find her rubies for her ears,_ he couldn’t help but think as he drank her in.  “What’s up?” 

            She gave him a faintly amused look.  “Our resident noblewomen seem to have adopted Daniella.  The three of them have retreated to Dorothy’s for the day to do who knows what.” 

            He raised his brows, allowing a smile to creep up his face as well.  “She’s probably enjoying that.”  The girl had honestly never gotten as much attention as she was due, growing up. 

            Relena just chuckled, shaking her head, as she moved to her vanity.  “I’ve also been soundly lectured that Danny is a boy’s name, and we’re not to ever use it again in reference to her, so as not to further _flay_ her self esteem.” 

            Jake snickered a bit at that; it sounded like Dorothy had been in a mood.  “I suppose I’m guilty of that one.  Do you know if they asked for her input before deciding this?” 

            “She was so starry-eyed over their interest that I doubt she would have minded if they had made it up on the spot, but apparently it’s something that’s bothered her since she turned eleven – she just didn’t have the nerve to bring it up.”  She tossed him a look over her shoulder as she began putting in simple diamond earrings.  “So consider yourself warned.  The two looked about ready to go on the warpath about it.” 

            “A young woman’s femininity is at stake,” Jake returned mock solemnly.  “It’s very serious business.” 

            She snickered, moving back for the staircase.  “I suppose it is at that.  Can I get your opinion on something before I send it over to Reconstruction?” 

            “I live to serve,” he returned in a wry tone, trying to not focus overly hard on her backside as she moved into the next room.  She was pleasantly oblivious to the hourglass she’d developed; or at least, oblivious as to how much it affected him.  Mailin gave him all sorts of amused looks over it, but appeared to be keeping mum, thankfully.  “Be up in a moment.” 

            Even Lu had never twisted him up in knots this bad, and she’d been more forbidden fruit than Relena was.  He _knew_ the princess felt the same as he did… but he didn’t want to be with someone he was _lying_ to.  It would destroy them both.  She should be able to walk away from this with a clean conscience, if it came down to it. 

            She deserved the chance to avoid a regret or two. 

-

***

-

**August 4 th 198 – Monday – Chartres, France**

            Being popular really fucking sucked.  Well, _notorious_ was probably a better word for it, but shit, was it too much to be able to walk down the street without a strong likelihood of being recognized?  _How do celebrities survive?_   She was only a damn terrorist – according to the current regime, mind, not anyone else – and she wasn’t even allowed in the fast food joint. 

            _No, no, let’s leave Hilde with the car.  We don’t want to risk any extra attention._   _Unbelievable._   How was it that Mr. Blue-Eyes didn’t have his picture posted everywhere, again?  All Noin bloody needed was a skirt and dark set of contacts, and apparently nobody recognized her!  _No fucking fair._   And she’d, like, been famous or something _before_ the war.  Yanking on the lever at her side, she threw herself back in the passenger seat so it was nearly fat, and glared at the ceiling. 

            She was really starting to _despise_ this car.  It was just one failure after another. 

            Adrenaline spiked as she heard a scuff right next to the vehicle, and she jumped halfway up in a spin before realizing it was Golden Boy himself staring in through the window.  Purposefully, she flopped back down and raised her eyebrows. 

            _What?  I’m **staying with the car**.  You can’t say I didn’t do it right._  

            He just kept staring. 

            Finally, she sighed.  What a stiff bastard.  “What?” 

            He held up a paper bag with some cheesy logo stamped on it.  “Aren’t you hungry?” 

            Hilde blinked, sitting up at the idea because hey, greased food did sound pretty awesome, even if it _was_ mystery meat… and froze. 

            He was alone.  This was her chance. 

            A muscle in his jaw ticked, for all that his expression stayed about as clear as stone. 

            _This is it: Duo’s alive._   “Du-” 

            Xutao literally threw himself into the back seat with an exasperated sigh.  “Why is it always potatoes?” 

            Marlé followed him in with a shrug, munching on a fry.  “They’re easy.” 

            “They’re gross,” Xu complained.  

            Heero raised an eyebrow at her, shifting impatiently.  “Do what?” 

            Hilde floundered for a second, trying to recover, and let the first thing to come to mind pop out.  “Do you _mind_?” she snarled. 

            _…God, my life sucks._  

-

***

-

**Space**

            _Space.  Why did anyone ever think that coming up here would be a good idea?_   He didn’t mean in the current sense; rather, the original colonization.  It was an inhospitable, bleak wasteland, with tiny islands of refuge.  And those islands were irresistibly vulnerable in so many ways… but also all too simple to make impossible to locate. 

            If the colonists had gotten this idea for defense even just twenty years ago, history might have gone rather differently.  But then, the Alliance had been far too firmly entrenched for that tactic; it had only become viable when he had magnanimously given them free reign to handle their own affairs in return for support with Earth.  He was beginning to wonder if they even knew what the words ‘fair’ or ‘chivalry’ meant.  Even _Heero_ had only ever been willing to meet him partway on those points; he always found a way to underdog his situation so he still escaped unscathed and able to say it had been the situation that determined the results, and not a matter of prowess. 

            No one else from the colonies seemed to even bother with a mask of understanding on that point; they seemed entirely bemused when the subject of ‘being fair’ came up. 

            Grimacing at the outward display, Milliardo decided to retreat back to his quarters; they weren’t going to get anywhere anytime soon.  “Call me when you start making some progress on this mess.”  _Space.  Just another junkyard._   Whoever had decided to create mass debris fields to shield trade routes deserved to be drawn and quartered.  The sheer collateral was ridiculous.  What had they even _used_ , in any case?  In space, _everything_ was a precious resource. 

            Settling into his chair, he smiled slightly at the reports in his inbox.  The colors of the opinion ranged widely depending on just who was writing, but together, it made an altogether poignant image:

            Relena was blossoming. 

            Romefeller was scrambling to pick up the pieces every time she neatly pulled apart their plots at the seams, and most recently, her new border patrol program – which even he had been highly skeptical of – had borne worthy fruit to the public eye.  Someone staffed in Croatia had uncovered an extensive bribe network that had turned out to be fostered by the McKlveens… and it had only gotten more scandalous from there.  Somehow, evidently it had led to the discovery of two fourteen-year-old girls dressed in burlesque in a Senator’s back room.  The sheer sensationalism of the details gave the movement more momentum. 

            He clenched his jaw as he considered the poor repercussions, though.  The McKvleens were not the most powerful family of Romefeller by far, but they were also far from the weakest, and whether or not they in particular sought out retribution, Relena had officially established herself as a threat to the Foundation, with this.  He could say from experience that that had a tendency to not end well.  Making waves like this meant making enemies, and there were only two ways through that particular storm: absolute, untouchable power, or having far more friends than enemies.  Considering her tendency to simply _fling_ herself into danger without a second thought…  It was enough to make him furious. 

            _Does she have any **idea** what Pandora’s box she’s opened up for herself?_  

-

***

-

**August 6 th 198 – Wednesday – Sevilla, Spain**

            “That’s _so_ not appropriate.” 

            Noin glanced up curiously, then looked in the direction Hilde was glowering.  She’d asked Odin to handle the computers when they’d found this base unmanned – whether for a lunch break or for more serious reasons was unknown, so Xu was on the roof keeping a lookout.  But when he’d sat down in front of them, Marlé had half hopped in his lap – carefully not putting any weight on his right leg, she noticed – and started on the keyboard before he could do anything.  In response, he’d just sat back in his chair and watched her work intently. 

            Lucrezia hadn’t thought too much of it; he wasn’t exactly going anywhere, with them situated like that, and he’d catch Marlé’s mistakes before she made them.  Probable case in point: he was leaning forward now working the controls alongside her, his broader shoulders framing hers. 

            It did, admittedly, look a little intimate, but not in an amorous way if you imagined the girl maybe two years younger, or him ten years older.  From some of the comments he’d made over the past few months, combined with the conversations she’d managed to have with the girl…  _Hm._   On the other hand, if Hilde was going to keep acting like she was jealous… 

            “You wanted to be in his lap?” she asked all too innocently, hopefully soft enough that the two at the computers wouldn’t hear.  Her student blushed bright red in response, but really…  with the way she had been trying to corner him the past two weeks, it was starting to look viable.  She would have thought Hilde past the typical ‘I pulled your hair because I secretly like you’ tactics of elementary school, but… well, you never knew. 

            If it weren’t for the fact that the man was now making a subtle _study_ of shunning the woman, she’d be half tempted to encourage it just for entertainment’s sake.  Hilde was quite obviously driving him up the wall, though he was handling it better than anyone she’d met outside of Sally.  She hadn’t expected that, for all that she’d noted his newfound serenity back in Sudan.  He brushed everything off like he didn’t even notice – though, then again, maybe he didn’t, entirely. 

            In any case, the more time she spent with him, the more she got the impression that the man could put up with a fairly fantastic amount of bullshit without losing it.  She couldn’t help but smile a little, watching him and the blonde girl quietly debate something back and forth before he gently batted her hands away from the keyboard and started typing.  You could see, in the way they interacted and even in his attempts to negotiate Hilde off her high horse without ripping into her pride – something she’d long given up as a pointless tactic – that he was an adept teacher. 

            He’d proven he could more than keep up with her skill-wise, he didn’t take shit, was refreshingly straight-forward, and she was starting to think he actually had the patience of the god he was named after.  _How did that go again?  War, death, wisdom and… poetry?_   The Norse had had some amusing ideas about what their lead god ought to be in charge of. 

            All the same though… the guy was impressive.  And if he kept _focusing_ on her the way he was… She had no active interest in finding someone, especially considering how it had turned out the last time she’d pursued that line of thought, but she wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea either.  _Hm._  

            She should probably start trying to smooth Hilde’s feathers before the woman imploded.  Girl was a damn fine soldier in terms of what she could _do_ , but she had an attitude problem no one really cared enough to try correcting.  The problem, really, was that the more she was mouthing off, the better she seemed to perform. 

            It also made for fairly steady entertainment, in her opinion, but the performance levels were the real reason why she hadn’t resorted to duct tape yet.  Hilde was just… one of those people who talked her way through a problem.  It was usually total nonsense coming out of her mouth, but it was part of her process, and frankly, they needed results more than discipline to pull off this revolution.  If somebody could get the job done, they could be as quirky as they wanted, so long as they _did_ it. 

            “Really, why should you care?” Noin asked curiously.  “He doesn’t strike me as your type.” 

            Never mind the fact that she knew Hilde was either being blind or grasping at straws to attack the man over.  She’d caught Marlé staring in wide-eyed horror and confusion at the feminine products in a grocer’s they ran into last week, and pretended to browse the details herself for a moment before the kid had taken a deep breath and asked for help.  She was very nice and up front about it; no bravado, but no loss of pride either.  Puberty was evidently a recent development – and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d met a girl who looked fifteen or so that turned out to be _far_ younger. 

            In any case, she was a good kid, just as steady and no-nonsense as he was, but with more… flounce.  Watching them interact, Lucrezia was beginning to suspect she’d been teaching him as much as the other way around.  After the grocer’s incident, Marlé had happily owned up to introducing him to _gummy bears_ , of all things, as well as movie theaters and silly string. 

            Hilde was stubbornly refusing to answer, so Lucrezia just shook her head and decided to prove her point.  “Hey, Marlé!”  When the girl looked up, she asked, “When’s your birthday?” 

            She brightened immediately.  “I’ll be thirteen next month!” 

            “Cool!” Lucrezia chirped back, making a mental note to find a trinket somewhere for the girl, before turning back to raise a brow at Hilde’s gaping mouth. 

            “ _Thirteen_?” she let out with a strangled voice. 

            “Twelve,” Noin corrected bluntly.  As much as she usually avoided the tactic, with some students, you just had to rub their nose in it before they’d get something.  “Feel like an ass yet?”  When Hilde just blushed harder, she shook her head.  “You need to stop making assumptions, or sooner than later, you’ll make a deadly one.  In all reality, your first mistake about the girl _was_ deadly – she just has restraint.”  And considering the fact that she was _his_ student, that restraint was something Lucrezia was going to be eternally grateful for.  She was pretty sure that the girl hadn’t killed yet, which was good.  That was probably going to change sooner than anyone liked, but that innocence deserved to be stretched as far as it could go. 

            “Whatever your issue is with him,” Noin went on, “I would appreciate you resolving it.”  However implacable the man seemed to be, _everyone_ had a breaking point, and she had no desire to witness him snap.  Odin snapping at her apprentice could damn well be disastrous, because for all that Hilde could be an obnoxious shit when she got the notion in her head, she _was_ still under Noin’s charge, and she suspected such a reaction might be violent.  She only intended to have Hilde and Xu with them for a few more days, since this was their second to last recon point in their original plan before starting to carpool, but if whatever this was was allowed to fester… 

            Hilde could hold a hell of a grudge. 

            The woman in question scowled.  “He just _bothers_ me,” she mumbled.  “I can’t figure him out; every time I think I’ve got it, he turns my theories upside down.” 

            _Ah._   “He does think in odd circles,” she agreed.  “But that doesn’t mean you can treat him like a dog you’re not too fond of.”  She was pretty sure he’d gotten enough of that shit while training for Operation Meteor.  The way he’d reacted and planned during the war just… didn’t leave a good impression for where his psyche had been purposefully led. 

            There were _reasons_ he seemed like almost a different person entirely from then, she had decided.  And they were probably the kind of reasons that made her want to kill somebody, so she’d also decided to not ask. 

            She was pretty sure Hilde was holding back on why she’d been acting like she had, but she was her commanding officer and mentor, not her shrink.  She didn’t have to explain; she just had to take responsibility for her actions.  “Let it go, have it out with him, or if you can’t manage that, keep away from him,” she ordered.  “I don’t care which you choose, but I’m almost to my limit on what I’ll accept from you, understood?  Direct _this_ , whatever it is, elsewhere.  You’re digging yourself a hell of a hole, and not earning any sympathy for it.” 

            Hilde swallowed.  “Yes, Ma’am.” 

            Noin nodded firmly in acceptance of that response and let it drop.  _Just a few more days,_ she mused, _and I’ll have them out of my hair for a bit._   Their tour was almost done, but she intended to help Odin finish picking up the Zero drives, at least in Europe.  He’d asked if she could back him up in the Americas too, but had been sketchy about the timeline; she got the impression that he was waiting for something else to happen first.  Hopefully that would work out; Sally had been so thrilled to learn the system was being put back together that Lucrezia had more wiggle room to work with, but that was really only in theory.  She couldn’t leave her people alone for _too_ long, but at the same time, Hilde could fly Heavyarms as if she’d been born in it.  She lacked experience, but her raw talent for flying was fantastic. 

            _Now if only her people skills would improve._   Well, you couldn’t have everything. 

            Her phone vibrated in a telltale pattern, and she considered her position for a moment before mentally shrugging and puling it out of her pocket.  She had run out of things to actively do, after all, and was covered from all directions.  _The wonders of delegation,_ she couldn’t help but note in amusement, glancing back to see Marlé again in charge over the keyboard. 

            The vibration pattern she’d felt was for social media updates, and she couldn’t help but grin as she saw it was from Cassie: _‘How do you serve an eviction to your uterus?!’_   Apparently, she hadn’t realized that due dates were more suggestions than anything, especially since they hadn’t started ultrasounds early enough to get the most accurate conception date. 

            She wished she could respond. 

            Cassie had always been a lively, humorous woman… that had been the main reason Lucrezia had introduced her to her father in the first place.  He was always genuinely _happy_ with the little blonde.  He’d never been the same after her mom died – not until she had started bringing Cassie around.  They were good for each other.  And for all that he had always adored her and denied any wish for more children, Lucrezia knew he would be _thrilled_ to have a son. 

            Shaking her head, she tucked her phone away again and tapped her earpiece on.  “How are we looking out there, Chang?” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s Townhouse**

            “Wonder what’s going on up there?” Alexis mused, staring at the muted news screen.  It had been saying stuff about the colonies… but really, he wasn’t buying it.  Information broadcasting had to be one of the easiest things to distort… and more distance usually meant more interference, no matter the field. 

            “Same shit, nicer backdrop,” BJ decided, dropping onto the recliner with a cup.  “Can’t say it matters much for here, so I really don’t give a damn.  Never knew anyone who lived up there, even.” 

            “I guess.”  It bugged him though, not knowing.  “Zechs is up there, now…  That can’t be good for anybody.” 

            “Gets him out of our hair.”  He grinned into his cup as he took a drink.  “Gets him out of the princess’s, and her little groupies.  It should be interesting enough down here, I think.” 

            Alexis nodded noncommittally.  For all that Colonel Mitchell had moved them into a sort of safety net by hiring their resistance group on as Catalonia’s house staff, not much about life had changed.  The woman was rarely home, so they didn’t even have to pretend, beyond keeping the house cleaner than they might have.  Last he checked, he was the only one to have ever actually _met_ Relena.  “Maybe I’ll ask Nan to look into it.”  Nan either was already keeping track of it, or knew how to find out.  Generally speaking, if it was digitized somewhere, Nan could get a hold of it. 

            “Just don’t get him too distracted,” BJ muttered dismissively. 

            Nan also had long-term projects, the same as Lindsay and BJ.  “I won’t,” he agreed, standing up.  He and Tristan tended to do more in the moment stuff, either as muscle or whatever odd-jobs needed doing, so times like this, when there wasn’t a job actively going down, he ended up bored… but Nan probably wasn’t.  Technically, he was head of the household, because it left BJ free to take care of other stuff…  _I should probably make sure everything’s clean._   For all that Dorothy rarely seemed to actively live in this place, there would be hell to pay if it wasn’t ready for her when she _did_ show up. 

            On the other hand, Nan’s room, in particular, was usually where things got out of hands in terms of mess. 

            Grinning, he made for the stairs. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “And…” Relena trailed off as she glanced outside across the grounds. 

            “Mm?” Jake asked, looking himself… and tilting his head.  “Huh.” 

            Mu blanched.  “How much does he _weigh_?” she demanded. 

            “About as much as he looks like,” Jake suggested.  “Someone needs to tell that woman he’s not a lapdog.” 

            Relena couldn’t help but start laughing at that – at least, that combined with the image.  Mailin was _carrying_ her dog across the grounds… her almost one hundred forty pound dog, the same way someone else might a baby.  She didn’t look like she was struggling, and the dog seemed perfectly happy with the situation. 

            “Remind me not to mess with that woman,” Lieutenant Ackroyd muttered, shifting uncomfortably and rubbing at her arms in sympathy.  “She’s not even breaking a sweat.” 

            _It **does** solve the mystery of the magically disappearing dog, however,_ Relena decided.  She’d never gotten around to asking the Major about that. 

            “I’m still lost on the _why_ ,” Jake added after a moment.  “But I can’t say it’s not good exercise.” 

            “It’s probably muddy,” Relena pointed out.  “Maybe she doesn’t want to wash him again.”  She didn’t entirely approve of a dog in the first place; a dirty dog was _utterly_ unacceptable. 

            _…How did she keep from dripping all over the floor, though?  She had to have carried him down the stairs…_   Dear God, but the image of the dog wrapped in layers of towel as well as compliantly letting himself be packed about like a toy poodle made her want to giggle even more helplessly.  Alternately, the idea of Mai cooing at her pet while plying him with a blow-dryer or three was even worse.  The fact that the Australian woman had probably had to resort to _both_ to leave the bathroom as nicely as she had a few weeks ago made her ‘teleporting sheepdog’ theory even more fantastic – the amount of effort it had to have taken must have been stunning. 

            “…Relena?” 

            She gasped for air, still trying to contain her giggles.  “Just give me a minute,” she protested.  Next, Mai would start putting little blue bows in the foot-long dreadlocks that made up his coat… or maybe ribbon.  As the images went on, however, her control entirely dissolved. 

            She really didn’t think that hysterical laughter was inappropriate in the slightest. 

-

***

-

**August 9 th 198 – Saturday – Northeast Spain**

            “Huh?” Marlé fumbled, startled as Odin tossed her the phone.  “Oh!  Um, hello?” 

            _“Hello to you too.”_   Quatre’s voice was vaguely amused.  _“Did you still want to come visit for a lesson?  Odin rather suggested you would.”_  

            “ _Yes_!” she half squeaked, suddenly full-blown excited.  “Where are you guys?  I’ll totally meet you.” 

            _“We’re headed to Georgia; the one off the Black sea, not the Atlantic.  Can you get there on your own?”_

            She frowned.  “I can… but it might take me a few days.  Is that okay, or do I need to figure out a plane?” 

            He seemed to consider for a moment.  _“Where are you now?”_  

            “Um…”  She tried to think of what city they were closest to for a moment, before giving up.  “Spain.” 

            _“…You don’t know, do you?”_

            “Not really,” she admitted, shrugging when Odin looked back at her. 

            Quatre sighed.  _“Put him back on, please.”_  

            Obediently, she handed the phone back to her brother and dashed for her bag.  Even though she was sure her stuff was packed together right, it was worth checking. 

            “What’s up?” Xu asked curiously.  They had settled into an abandoned house for the night, since they had gotten the Zero piece easier than Odin had expected and he and Hilde were headed back to wherever they’d come from the next day anyhow. 

            “She navigates fine,” Odin was muttering into the phone.

            “Meeting up with some friends,” she returned vaguely, rolling onto her belly to make sure nothing had rolled under the dresser/cabinet thing she’d spilled her duffel next to earlier.  “I was starting to wonder if they were ever going to call, with how long they took.” 

            “Daroca, maybe?”  He was starting to frown.  “Calatayud.” 

            “Aragón,” Lucrezia suggested helpfully.  “I think we’re technically closer to Zaragoza than either of those towns, but you can’t go wrong with the province name.” 

            Odin’s shoulders were tightening into more of a slouch.  “I really don’t see why this is upsetting.” 

            “Is that your mom, or something?” Xu ventured. 

            Marlé laughed at that.  “No!” 

            “I don’t think that will be very helpful,” Odin continued.  “Especially considering the terrain.”  He listened for a moment.  “That was willing, though.  Did you have a point, with this?”  Another pause.  “I don’t like the possible aftermath.  No.” 

            That… was starting to sound a little ominous.  “He’s not threatening to ditch me somewhere with a canteen and see if I can make my way back to civilization, is he?” 

            His returning contemplative look was _not_ comforting.  Her heart sank.  “Isn’t Georgia, like, _desert_?” 

            He waved a dismissive hand at her, pacing back to the far side of the little house. 

            …She was a lot _less_ excited, suddenly.  “I just met trees for the first time, I’m not ready for wilderness training!” she protested.  He was pacing back now, his own duffel over his arm.  “Odin!” 

            “Stop panicking,” he lectured, holding the phone between his head and shoulder so he could open the top of his bag… and upend it on the floor next to her in one swift motion. 

            “Odin!” she squeaked, skittering back on instinct. 

            Rolling his eyes, he reached for hers and dumped it too.  “Give us an hour, I’ll call you back.”  Hitting the end button, he gave her a very level look.  “You should pack.” 

            Across the room, Hilde started to giggle uncontrollably. 

            Marlé eyed the pile dubiously.  The urge to just jam half of it in his and half in hers haphazard was- 

            “No.” 

            She glowered up at him.  “Was there a _point_ to that, or is it just your time of the month?” 

            Hilde was laughing harder, now.  Xu was beginning to look wild-eyed. 

            Odin, however, just smirked a little at her.  “I thought you wanted the canteen.” 

            _Oh crap._   The water bottle _had_ been in his bag…  And her shorts, somehow, from the look of things… and when had he reclaimed the PlayPaq?  “Oh.” 

            He just shook his head a little.  “Three piles: mine, yours, and shared.  I need to map a route, and then I’ll help.”  He started to move away.  “And he’s not _ditching_ you anywhere.” 

            “Okay,” she returned amiably, focusing back on their stuff.  She’d totally had his scarf and beanie… and socks.  _Why were his socks in my bag?_   Shrugging, she tossed them off to her right, and reached for the padded bag with most of the electronics.  “Can I have the laptop?” 

            “We’ll talk about it after I plan your route.” 

            She sighed, scooting over and setting it to a ways in front of her in a ‘share’ pile.  “Okay.”  Glancing up, she saw Xu was staring at her disbelievingly.  “What?” 

            “Just like that?” he demanded. 

            “…Just like what?” she asked dubiously. 

            “Yes,” Lucrezia inserted smoothly from her sleeping bag, digging through her knapsack… probably for her maps. 

            …Right, she was sure that probably made sense somehow, but she had stuff to do.  She’d trust Lucrezia on this one.  “Just like that,” she agreed, holding up a sweater and trying to decide if it was hers or her brother’s.  They were pretty close to the same size anymore… and she liked this one.  Shrugging, she added it to the share pile. 

            It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to debate it with her when he was done anyway. 

-

***

-

**August 11 th 198 – Monday – Stuttgart, Germany**

            _“Hey, lady,” Howard greeted cheerfully.  “What can I do you for?”_

            Lucrezia grinned at the euphemism, but decided not to comment on it.  “I need an atmosphere drop to Paraguay, and a way back up.  Can you make it work?” 

            The old man whistled lowly.  _“That’d be a pretty nice little ship now, missy.  You promise not to break it, if I loan it out?”_  

            She glanced sideways at Odin – who really was still Heero, in terms of his capacity to blow shit up – before shrugging.  “Should be doable.”  He was turning out to not be too bad at low-key.  Besides, there wasn’t a whole lot over there to hassle them.  “Do you have something that that could be ready to rock and roll in a day or two?” 

            _“Hell, I could swing today if you needed me to, darlin’,”_ the old engineer flirted.  _“But I’d prefer tomorrow, I guess.  You need my help gettin' up here?”_  

            “We’ve got travel plans set already,” she told him happily.  “We’ll be in your area a couple hours into your light cycle tomorrow, if that’s good.” 

            _“We, now?”_ he asked.  _“It’s not a **big** boat, missy.  Just how much is we?”_  

            “Just two,” she assured. 

            _“Oh, ho,”_ he crowed.  _“This isn’t a **romantic** getaway, is it?”_  

            She laughed, though she was also glad she had the volume low enough that Odin couldn’t hear the old lech.  “There’s nothing like digging through the jungle on a crazed scavenger hunt,” she told him in a sweet tone.  Though truly, how much of a true jungle it was anymore was debatable.  “Can you look into the weather for me, too?” 

            _“Oh, sure, I see how it is,”_ he groused playfully.  _“I’ll email it to you.  See you tomorrow, kiddo.”_  

            “Thanks.”  Hanging up, she slipped back over to the bar, and nudged a glass she’d ordered before making the call over at her partner.  “Try this.” 

            He considered the yellow liquid for a moment before sipping it.  Tilting his head in what seemed to be appreciation, he took another sip.  “Are you planning on always plying me with citrus?” he asked curiously. 

            She laughed, taking the shot of limoncello back for a sip of her own.  “Only so long as it’s appreciated,” she noted.  “Feel free to order something else.” 

            “I didn’t say it was a bad idea,” he pointed out, reaching to take it back. 

            She let him, grinning… as the bartender set a shot of something else down in front of her. 

            He frowned at that.  “What level of inebriation were we aiming for, again?” 

            “Not very,” she decided.  “But I detest beer.  I’d rather nurse a shot or two of something stronger.”  Tasting what had gone down in front of her, she hummed happily, even as she grimaced.  “This is good, but, if you want to try, you should wait for the lemon taste to fade.  It doesn’t go well with chocolate… vanilla?”  She considered the glass; the liquid was amber, which certainly didn’t give anything away.  “It’s sweet, at any rate.” 

            “Hn.”  He considered for a moment, then reached for the bowl of peanuts on the counter to clear his palate.  “You don’t know what it is?” 

            “I asked for the limoncello, and for something straight up that was sweet,” she admitted.  “If I decide I like it, I’ll ask him what it is.”  She took another sip and nodded; that was better.  “How’s your leg tonight?” 

            “Not bad.  Irritating enough that this seemed like a good idea,” he admitted with a vague gesture to the bar, “But not bad either.” 

            She nodded; that had been about her estimation too, which was why she had pointed out the bar when they passed it.  “You can have the bathroom to yourself tonight,” she told him.  “I’ll take it in the morning, before we fly out.” 

            He nodded.  “I assume everything is good on that front?” 

            “I would have mentioned it, otherwise,” she agreed, offering the glass when he brushed the last of the peanut shell off his hands.  “I do hope you know what we’re doing once we get there, though.  The landscape might not be what you remember.” 

            He nodded as he took the glass, staring at it for a moment.  “The first place is… the middle ground, as it were.  It should give me an idea of how bad it might be, but should be easy enough to find.”  He sipped, and frowned.  “The second is nearby, and shouldn’t be too big of a hassle, once the initial groundwork is done.  That’s probably all you have time for.” 

            “Alright.”  She gestured back at her drink.  “What do you think?”  He shook his head a little, handing it back, and she grinned.  “More for me, then.”  Glancing up at the display, she noted, “We could probably get one or two more, but I’d say that’s the maxout point.  Pick something else out before I do, hm?” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Relena?” 

            The princess turned to smile at her.  “Good evening, Addie.”  Noticing the other woman’s frown, she asked, “What is it?” 

            Her maid gave her an exasperated sort of look.  “Do you know where Dorothy is?” 

            Relena frowned.  “I can find her, I’m sure.  What’s wrong?” 

            She raised both her brows.  “Well, she seems to have stolen my son again.” 

            “…Again?”  Never mind that Dorothy had never expressed any interest in children to her knowledge, but… _again_? 

            “Two weeks ago, she and Olivia took Danny out to lunch more or less _because_ she said she was babysitting.  Then she started helping me in the kitchen some afternoons.  Then she offered to watch him the other night so I could have an evening to myself.  Two days ago, she disappeared with him most of the day, and suddenly he has new clothes, which I appreciate, but…”  She sighed.  “I haven’t seen my son in five hours, and it’s unnerving me.” 

            …Well, that gave at least part of an answer as to what the other woman had been up to, come to think of it.  She hadn’t been underfoot quite as often, this last week.  Honestly, she’d just assumed she was off with Olivia, since their disappearances were beginning to line up rather well.  That or with Daniella… who had her nephew with her at least forty percent of the time… 

            _Huh._   Well, it wasn’t as though Dorothy hadn’t gone in entirely unexpected directions before.  “Let’s go find them, then.” 

            As it turned out, Dorothy’s favorite room in the house was still her office atrium, and she had managed to collect Mai and the dog at some point as well as the toddler.  Willam, at roughly two years old, was rather intent on playing with the giant dog, and Dorothy was ‘helping’ in the loosest sense of the word.  Her bodyguard appeared to be mostly focused on paperwork, but all things considered, Relena was incredibly grateful the other woman was there.  Mai had half raised her niece and nephew; she actually knew what to _do_ with babies. 

            “Well look at you, little man,” Addie crooned, instantly capturing the boy’s attention.  The tension seemed to melt off her at the sight of the child.  Personally, Relena wasn’t entirely sure – that dog was huge.  “Are you having fun?” 

            He gave her a gap toothed grin, waving a handful of the giant canine’s dreadlocks.  “Esso.” 

            _Esso?_   Come to think of it, she’d never bothered to learn the creature’s name. 

            “Are you hungry?” Addie asked, coming up to kneel next to him and scratch the dog behind the ears. 

            The baby immediately shook his head, flopping himself _into_ the dog’s side, and snuggling deeper with a giggle.  “Esso!” 

            The dog affected to not notice

            “He’s been gnoshing all afternoon,” Mai noted, setting her papers aside and stretching.  “Healthy stuff, even some chicken.  If you give him a bottle before bed, he’ll probably go right down and stay there.” 

            “They were playing with a ball just a minute ago,” Dorothy inserted happily.  “Willam was pushing it to him, and Lorenzo was nosing it back.”  She tilted her head.  “I think he’s getting tired, though.” 

            “He does that,” Addie agreed, reaching out and tickling her son’s belly so he giggled more.  “Did he nap?” 

            “Not as long as you say he does for you, but some.” 

            Relena turned as the floorboards chirped, noticing Mai standing as well, though Dorothy and Addie kept their focus on the child.  When Lin poked his head through the door and pointedly met Relena’s eyes, Mai sat back down.  Relena considered the group on the floor for a moment before shaking her head and moving for the door. 

            It really wasn’t any of her concern… on average, she only vaguely noticed that there even _was_ a baby in the house.  “What’s up?” she asked as she closed the door behind her. 

            Lin gestured for her to follow him downstairs, biting his lip.  “I got a call for you… come on.” 

            She frowned as she moved after him.  “A call?”  Lin didn’t answer the house line, and if it was more personal, people either called her cell or Jake’s. 

            “It’s Mitchell,” Lin murmured.  “I think he wanted to be sure Jake didn’t pick up.” 

            _Ooh._   “How is he?” she asked quickly.  Then, before he could answer that, “Where’s Jake right now?” 

            “Jake’s down in the range with the boys, and…  I don’t know, Lena.”  He made a frustrated noise.  “He was being damned cagey, but he and I were always more coworkers than friends.  He just said he wanted to talk to you.” 

            “Where’s the phone?” 

            “I’m heading to your suite,” Lin returned by way of explanation.  “It’s on me, but I’ve got it on mute.  I figured you’d want some actual privacy… the office and your suite are the only places with the nightingale floors.” 

            “You’ll stay,” Relena told him firmly.  She’d trusted him this far… the only thing she hadn’t told him about now was Treize – and she might concede that too, before long.  Lin was almost as deep in all this as she was, and he’d been there for each part of it already.  “I could use a second opinion, and if someone does come in, we can be talking.”  After Jake, Lin and Mai were the guards she connected with most on a personal level, and everyone in the complex knew it.  With the little domestic party going on in her office, no one would think it was odd if she was spending time with one of her friends in her room.  As they moved through her antechamber, she whispered, “Check Jake’s area while I lock the bathroom.” 

            He nodded and split off from her, then was waiting at the bottom of the staircase for her as she came back down into her closet, holding out the cell.  Taking a deep breath, she took it and turned the volume up to max before tapping the mute off.  “David?” 

            _“Lena,”_ he greeted warmly, if tiredly.  _“Hey, Princess.  How’ve you been doing?”_  

            Taking the last few steps down the spiral stairs, she laughed a little.  “You know how I’m doing, silly; I’m on television practically every other day.  How are _you_?”  She glanced at Lin, and he nodded; he could hear fine. 

            _“I’m… okay.  Had to get some Remalene and stay on light duty for a bit, but it’s mended, now.”_

            Relena closed her eyes as she moved to sit on the small couch she had in her suite.  Remalene was a metabolism based drug that also amped the immune system.  They used it to speed up the healing process; it could heal broken bones in one month instead of three.  But, in order to be prescribed, you generally had to either _have_ broken bones or something more severe.  She’d taken it for her gunshot wound last year… and Jake had taken it for four separate three week bursts during his recovery from the riot last December.  “David…” 

            _“I know, I know,”_ he muttered with a sigh.  _“It’s alright now, though, okay?  How is **he**?”_  

            “Moody,” she returned instantly.  “He’s hiding it well for the most part, but he’s…”  She shook her head a little, glancing to Lin, sitting next to her.  He’d actually snarled insults at Hayden seemingly out of nowhere the other day before disappearing into town for a few hours.  When he’d come back, he was calm, but… well, it was a good thing he’d been gone for as long as he had, because it had taken that that much time to convince their resident geek that his hero didn’t actually hate him.  “Whatever it was that was bothering him before, it’s gotten worse.” 

            _“That’s mostly what I wanted to talk to you about,”_ Mitchell noted, his tone picking up.  _“I’m not there right now, so I need you to look after him for me, okay?”_  

            Lin’s look suggested he thought this conversation had just turned insane, but Relena just frowned.  “What?” 

            _“This time of year is always bad, Lena,”_ the colonel coaxed.  _“I mean, I think it might be taking an all-time low since 188, but… he gets like this every August.  Honestly, the man needs a therapist, but since there’s no way that’s happening… we make do.  He, like… **looks** for reasons to hate himself in August, and when something upsets him outside of that… sometimes, there’s collateral.”_   He sighed.  _“Last year, it was Jack.  This year, it was me.  Only, I know he feels like shit about me when he didn’t about Jack, so that’s probably making it **worse**.  But he’s not going to talk to me until he gets over his funk, so I need you to just… be steady, for him, okay?”_  

            “Be steady?” she asked, mind whirling. 

            _“You’ve always just accepted him, no matter what.  That’s what he needs more than anything.  It’s true all the time, honestly, but it’s especially so this time of year.  It’s not anything different from what you normally do, that’s just how you are, so maybe I shouldn’t have even said anything but…”_   He sighed again.  _“Just don’t forget that he needs you, okay?  Don’t let him make you think he doesn’t, because it would be a lie.”_  

            A warmth grew deep in her belly at that.  She had believed it before now, and he hadn’t given her any reason to doubt… but hearing it was nice too. 

            _“Don’t push him on it, but be around **to** talk to, okay?  It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes, with Noin, he’d try to talk his thoughts out to her.  It’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to that therapy I mentioned him needing.  It probably won’t happen anyway, but…  You’ve broken all sorts of rules he kept that I thought weren’t ever changing.”  _

            “Thank-you, I think,” she murmured. 

            _“Only telling the truth, Lena.  Either way, I should go…  I’ll try to talk to you again soon, okay?  You can always call if you want, okay?”_

            “Of course.”  She pursed her lips.  “How long do you think it will be before he talks to you again?” 

            _“I…”_   He made a frustrated noise.  _“I don’t know.  Not to give him excuses, but I really did fuck up, too.  It was for all the right reasons, but it’s still there.  Another month?  Maybe three?  If he doesn’t find a reason to get over that other shit you mentioned, longer, but I’ll probably come back and pick another fight if it gets close to five.”_  

            She closed her eyes.  Another month of this tension, and she might slap him herself…  Which, if Mitchell’s advice was anything to go by, was probably the worst thing she could do. 

            She had ignored his advice about Jake once, a year ago, and regretted it.  She wasn’t going to repeat the venture; his point had been well proven. 

            “Take care of yourself, David,” she told him after a moment.  “He might not want to admit it right now, but he needs you too.” 

            The man choked out a short laugh.  _“Yeah, don’t I know it.  Take care yourself; all those nobles can be as bad as anything I’m facing with these anarchists.”_  

            She smiled, resisting the urge to cry.  “Don’t I know it,” she mimicked back at him.  “I’ll talk to you later.” 

            Once she’d hung up, Lin let out a deep breath.  “Well…”

            “Well,” she agreed when he didn’t sound like he was going to continue. 

            He gave her a helpless look.  “Honestly, that made this all about as clear as mud.” 

-

***

-

**Stuttgart, Germany**

            “Melon,” Lucrezia declared, setting the glass back down in front of him. 

            Odin picked it up tasted again, trying to see if he could come up with something he actually recognized.  He’d picked it at random because of the liquid’s neon green color, but he hadn’t expected something that tasted so… fresh.  It was surprisingly mild, despite the burn of the alcohol, and startlingly sweet, but… just fresh. 

            He didn’t have a workable frame of reference for ‘melon’.  He wasn’t even sure he knew what it looked like, honestly.  _Might be worth looking into,_  

            This was the fourth shot glass, but the only one they had actually finished was the first, and Lucrezia was largely ignoring the second, apparently since the flavors of the latter two contrasted too sharply with it.  The third… he thought it might be good for cleaning something, but not much else. 

            This one wasn’t bad, though. 

            “Can I get some kind of cola?” she asked the bartender, offering him one of her easy smiles.  Holding up her hand to give a measure of maybe four centimeters, she added, “About this much, in a glass?” 

            “You got it,” the affable man muttered, quickly grabbing a cup and pouring.  “Was going to suggest something like that if you let it sit there much longer.” 

            “It seems like the thing to do,” she agreed as he set the glass on the bar and offered her a straw.  She glanced his way as she picked up the least favorite of the liquors and poured it into the soda.  “You’re good with that one, right?” 

            “I like it,” he agreed, watching as she took up the other shot glass and poured it in as well.  “You think that will mask it?” 

            “I know one way to find out,” she murmured as she spun the straw through the liquid with one finger.  As was usual with any of the motions of her hands, he found the gesture oddly graceful. 

            Lucrezia, he had decided at some point over the last month, had an appealing fluidity to her, no matter her mood.  He hadn’t decided if she hadn’t had it during the war or if he simply hadn’t paid it any attention, but was willing to admit that even if she had, he wouldn’t have bothered to appreciate it.  He’d been too focused on… actually, he wasn’t sure he had _actually_ been focused on something in particular, but he acknowledged tunnel vision.  Looking back, most of his choices had been distressingly arbitrary, despite his conviction that the meanings were… for lack of a better word, deep. 

            _So, hindsight, or transparency?_  

            His decisions were most definitely arbitrary now… but he openly acknowledged it, even actively sought out whimsy for direction if the mood struck him.  Maybe the question wasn’t so much on whether a thing had meaning or not, but what meaning you decided to give it.  And by that standard, you could design your own priority structure instead of simply following the orders of others… 

            “You’re looking thoughtful,” Lucrezia noted, sipping delicately from her cup. 

            “Introspection has become something of a hobby,” he agreed, focusing back on his own drink to be sure he wasn’t staring at her – that had an alarmingly high rate of occurrence if he didn’t consciously subvert the action.  “How is it now?” 

            “Mm, tolerable,” she decided, taking a longer sip.  “Care to share the insight, or not really?” 

            He shrugged.  “I was just thinking about the past, and how things change,” he summed up.  “I’ve never thought things would stay the same, but… I never really tried to look ahead, either.”  His father had never cared to plan beyond a month or two into the future and had obviously done fine, but…  He was finding, more and more, that only living in the moment limited you to a startlingly narrow view. 

            Maybe the assassin had just liked to keep things simple, that way, but the more he experienced, the more intolerable the lack of exploration became.  Despite the fact that he was coming to realize that he wasn’t actually from the colonies, in the regular sense...  He didn’t seem to be from anywhere else either.  The constant changes in scenery he had kept his whole life was…  surprisingly static, in a way.  It might allow for versatility, but it disallowed outlets for growth, too. 

            “Change is the only static,” he decided after a moment.  “But there’s too many options to consider directionality as a true factor.” 

            “Mm, very philosophical.”  She stretched lazily, and his eyes were drawn to her again.  “I’d noticed you had a loose sense of permanency, but I can’t say I disagree with it.  There’s a famous quote somewhere about how the only thing predictable about the future is its unpredictability.”  Yawning, she added, “And the only way to predict the future is to craft it yourself, of course.”  Lips twisting into a wry smile, she continued, “It rarely goes according to plan, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile.  After all, in the end of the day, not making a decision is the same as making one.”  She had a faraway look in her eyes as she gazed out the window to the street.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with drifting, either, but that doesn’t make it any less of an action, when it comes to consequence.” 

            The thought process mirrored his own so well that he smiled, holding up his shot in a cheers motion.  “Exactly.” 

            With a mischievous grin, she leaned forward and stole a sip instead of raising her glass to clink against his, and he forced his eyes back to the bottles behind the bar as she licked her lips, focusing on regulating his heart rate. 

            Chuckling lowly, Lucrezia shook her head.  “Introspection became something of a hobby for me too, after _Libra_ ,” she admitted, nibbling at her straw as she tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.  “I was a wreck, to put it mildly.” 

            “I can relate to that.”  He took an outright gulp from his glass. 

            “Mm, to be sure, from what I’ve gathered.”  She kicked gently at his stool.  “How’s the leg, by the way?  We’ve been taking our time, but it’s all been pretty high proof.” 

            “Good,” he admitted, testing the muscles and finding them pleasantly relaxed.  He’d actually forgotten, for a little while, that it had been bothering him at all. 

            “Mission accomplished, then,” she told him with a wink, tipping her head back and downing half of the fluid in her cup.  Shaking her head quickly with a grimace, she set it back down.  “I think I’m done for the night, personally.” 

            There wasn’t that much of his left…  With a shrug, he tipped his head back too and downed it.  “Sounds good.”  Standing, he reached for his wallet.  They’d paid before getting the last shot, but then Lucrezia had gotten the soda. 

            The bartender saw him and waved dismissively.  “Don’t worry about it.” 

            “Tip,” his friend muttered under her breath as she dropped down to her feet. 

            Odin nodded and retrieved a reasonable amount of cash, leaving it on the counter.  The man’s returning smile was appreciative and he offered them a wave that Lucrezia returned as they walked out.  Each sliding into their coats, they began the short walk back to the motel they’d picked for the night.  Lucrezia let out a happy sigh.  “It’s nice to get some peace and quiet, again,” she announced softly.  “They’re good kids, but that doesn’t always mean I don’t get the urge to just tie them up and leave them somewhere, sometimes.” 

            A startled chuckle made its way past his lips.  Before now, he hadn’t thought her bothered by the three they had just finished sending off in different directions.  “Hilde was the only one that irritated me,” he found himself admitting.  Xutao’s personality was fairly subdued and unobtrusive, and Marlé…  Marlé was generally amusing, even when exasperating. 

            “Hm, it’s all the bickering that gets on my nerves,” she explained.  “Hilde’s usually the source of it, and it’s funny at first, but after a while…”  She shrugged.  “No matter what she can do or how old she’s getting, my girl’s just as much of a kid as yours, still.”  She glanced up at him.  “Maturity hasn’t caught up to the numbers yet, if that makes sense.” 

            It did.  He smiled, recognizing something else she meant.  “When did I stop being another kid, to you?” 

            “Hmm…”  She thought about it for a minute as they approached their building, and he pulled the key out, not interrupting.  As the door opened, she decided, “ _Libra_ , maybe; you were different, after you joined us on Howard’s ship.”  As he shut and locked the door, she dropped to the bed and crossed her legs, still debating.  “It wasn’t even a question anymore when you showed up in the Carpathians a few months ago, but I didn’t expect you to…”  She tipped her head to one side, then met his eyes again.  “It’s hard to remember you’re younger than me, most of the time.  I haven’t had a real partner, a peer, since I left OZ… maybe since I was fifteen.”  She shook her head.  “Hindsight is a real kick in the behind, isn’t it?  If I had known what he was really like, then…”  She sighed.  “Well, it’s done, now, at any rate, but that kind of thing never stops hurting all the way, I think.” 

            “No.  It doesn’t.” 

            Her smile warmed him all the way down to his belly this time, setting off other reactions… but before he could decide what he wanted to do with that, her phone chirped and she let out an excited noise as she twisted to pull it from her pocket. 

            …That happy sort of squeak was not helping. 

            She was engrossed in the screen for a long moment, before gesturing for him to sit next to her.  “Look…” 

            Feeling slightly awkward, he did so, leaning in close enough that he could pick up on that lightly floral scent he’d noticed weeks ago, that was beginning to make his head spin now; or maybe that was the alcohol.  Most of the screen was taken by a photo of a newborn wrapped in blue blankets, held in the arms of an older dark-haired man that appeared too focused to have looked up for the camera.  The child himself was ugly in the way that he gathered all new babies were, but contentedly asleep.  A caption below the photo read: _‘Lyle Noin.  7 pounds, 8 ounces’_  

            _Noin._  

            “I’m a sister now,” Lucrezia murmured, staring at the image with a beautifully soft expression.  Unexpectedly, she turned the same on him after a moment.  “What I do now, it’s for his future.  He won’t grow up in a world suffering a megalomaniac as its tyrant…”  Her focus moved back to the screen.  “I’ll make sure he won’t.” 

            “…He won’t,” Odin agreed after a moment, unsure what else to say.  She had literally only just gotten news of the boy’s existence, but this devotion…  The possessive way Odin would wrap a heavy arm around his shoulders when he doubted himself flooded his mind; how he had tousled his hair almost unconsciously when they were walking together, his always constant observation…  Before the day of his death, Odin wasn’t even sure when the last time he had been away from his father’s side had been. 

            That need to take care of someone, near or far, easy or impossible… that was love, wasn’t it?  That was _family_ …  He looked back to the phone, to see she had flipped to a larger image of an exhausted-looking blonde woman holding the child, nonetheless beaming brightly at the camera.  The man from before was leaning over her shoulders and you could see his face this time, and its resemblance to Lucrezia’s. 

            _This_ was family… her family. 

            “I’m going to take a bath,” he muttered after another moment, standing.  She waved him off distractedly, still focused on the pictures, and he made short work of grabbing his toiletries and retreating into the tiled room.  Turning on the water, he sat to think. 

            He didn’t have a family anymore, but he’d had a father, once. 

            _Why didn’t I ever look into his death?_   There hadn’t been time…  There never had been, back then.  _It wouldn’t have changed anything._   The man had been dead, and that was as straightforward as it got.  Something had gone wrong with his end of the job… and he’d been trying to abandon him anyway. 

            Blinking as the room began to mist, he suddenly realized just how… _bitter_ he’d felt about that. 

            It hadn’t mattered, because Odin had been the one to cut the ties.  Not him.  He’d resented that… but it wasn’t as though there was another option to follow anyway, after his death.  That had just made it complete. 

            But the part that had always bothered him most was that even as he laid dying… he had still cared.  That love he had always offered was in his last words, last advice, to always follow his emotions.  He had been trying to _leave him_ …  But he had still wanted him to be happy. 

            _…Was he trying to die, that day?_  

            Looking back, he could honestly say that Odin had always been depressed…  It hadn’t affected him too badly most of the time, always focusing on the task at hand or on him, pushing the melancholy away… 

            The more he thought about it, the more viable of an option it seemed.  Everything leading up to L3-X18999 had been odd…  From an adult’s perspective now, he could see that the man had been planning more than a month into the future, meticulously, instead of letting the wind carry him.  He had informed him of all the details concerning the trip far earlier than usual…  And he had made sure that Odin was far away from him during his part of the job.  Too far to get caught in the potential crossfire, and too far to possibly help if the situation turned on him. 

            Suddenly, there was a bleak familiarity to when he had first handed the gun to Silvia Noventa, fully expecting the action would be his last.  Wishing for it, even… for the redemption it might bring. 

            Glancing at the water level, he stripped down and eased himself in, unsure of what to do with the revelation.  In the end, it really _didn’t_ matter: dead was dead.  But…  More than ever, he was beginning to understand the importance of family.  Marlé was his family now despite the lack of common blood, but Odin had been there first.  Odin was the one who had molded him into the person he became… and he knew virtually _nothing_ about him. 

            He was going to have to change that. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? 
> 
> \--  
> I was seriously half-tempted to rename this chapter “In which Hilde attempts to annoy Odin into a conclusion, and gets all the wrong results” at one point. It ended up coming out as rather Hilde-bashing in some ways, but I think it’s mostly just that she doesn’t have a very mature way of handling stress, which, frankly, we’ve already seen. Her stress response seems to be a hell of a bitch/brat routine, which Odin really isn’t sure how to react to. The fact that nothing seems to go as she plans doesn’t exactly help. Also, I refuse any claim to Cathy; if you ask me, she's completely in canon character, and I have no responsibility for her behavior whatsoever.


	11. Then & Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half the cast is caught up in the past, and hindsight is rarely kind. Lucrezia and Odin go an a rather dystopian adventure turned vacation, Duo keeps house, Marlé solves a mystery, and Jake gets put in time-out. Meanwhile, Relena finally pieces together a few answers of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just grammar and flow editing. I thought about breaking this one into two chapters as part of the edit, but while it seemed doable, it didn't quite fit either, so you get the original solid 42 pages - and I know from reading Recast aloud to my husband (so he knows what the hell I'm talking about all the time) that 30 pages takes over two hours at a regular audiobook pace, so that counts for something.
> 
> Enjoy!

**_-_ **

**_ Then & Now _ **

_\--_

_ You build on the future.  You use it as a stepping stone.  Close the door on the past.  You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it.  You don’t have to let it have any of your energy, or any of your space. _ _– Johnny Cash_

_\--_

_ People change.  Memories don’t. _ _– Anonymous_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**_August 28 th 188 – L3-X18999 – St. Jude Dominican Hospital – Morgue_ **

_**Deep breath in… out.  In…  Out.  Breathe.**_

**_Don’t forget._ **

_“Jake?”_

_He shook his head, not sure his voice could work.  He was focusing on the chest… not the face._

_If he looked at the face, then he wouldn’t be able to deny it any more._

_**Breathe.  What are you doing?  You can’t be here.**   _

_Lu’s hand rested on his shoulder, lightly; a hesitant touch, ready to be snatched back at the first sign of movement.  He didn’t care, though; she was allowed.  And he was busy, anyway._

_**Breathe.  Breathe, damnit!**   This couldn’t be happening.  _

_The hand on his shoulder tightened, his friend’s shoulder pressing into his back as she moved closer.  She was trying to anchor him…_

_He didn’t want to need an anchor, right now._

_The Alliance soldier standing next to the coroner looked annoyed.  “So do we have a positive ID, or not?”_

_Business as always, with them.  No patience, and no creativity.  His uncle had always had interesting stories for what came to people without imagination.  Steeling himself, he allowed his gaze to drift away from the still, pale chest and its raw bullet wounds, up to the face…_

_**No.  Impossible.**_ _He refused to accept it.  He had always been more careful than this…  Even if he’d seemed such a shadow of himself lately, surely he couldn’t have become this stupid.  “Did you run the DNA test yet?”_

_“He’s not in the database,” the man noted in annoyance.  “What would be the point in calling you down here if-”_

_“Compare his profile to mine.”  When they didn’t respond immediately, he turned eyes he knew ought to be cold on the coroner.  “Now, if you would.”_

_The Alliance soldier scowled, and began muttering under his breath.  “Fucking OZ, sending in fucking kids…”_

_“I’d watch my mouth, if I were you.”  Jake met the man’s eyes and distantly felt a spark of satisfaction at the sudden unease he found in his posture.  He’d always been able to use that glare to his advantage; when he wanted to be taken seriously, it had a way of making people forget his age.  A blink and he could make them as crystal and innocent as any child’s… and he used that to his benefit too._

_Whatever got the job done; don’t deny any talents you possess out of pride, though it could be useful to make people think you thought yourself humble, or incompetent.  Everyone else relied on perceptions and emotions to such a degree…  Very few were capable of relying on sheer ability.  The easiest route to success usually took advantage of that._

_It couldn’t be his uncle on that slab, no matter what he looked like.  Only morons went into a firefight with nothing but canvas over their chests.  Depressed as he’d been the last time they had talked, the man had too much nerve to ever stoop to such suicidal-_

_“It’s a match,” the doctor announced suddenly.  “First degree relative.”_

_There was pity in those eyes, now.  “Shit…”_

_The hand on his shoulder grew tight enough to cause pain, if he’d been paying it any attention._

_**No.**   His eyes flitted back to the face…  **His** face after all.  His chest hurt.  **How?**   The man could smell an ambush from miles away.  He owned some of the finest body armor money could buy.  He obviously hadn’t been wearing it.  _

_So, not how, but **why**?  _

_**Suicide.**   Icy rage poured through his veins, even as he began to feel dizzy.  It had really gone that far, that deep, then?  As soon as he was out of here, he was looking up Jack’s latest address and-  _

_Lu struck him sharply in the ribs, and he gasped for air… sweet, relieving air._

_**Breathe!** he snarled at himself.  **Fuckall.**   He was lucky Lu hadn’t let him come alone – much longer and he probably would have just passed out.  What an intimidating image he’d have cut then.  _

_He clenched his jaw, closing his eyes for a moment. **So he decided he wanted to die, huh?**   Betrayal seared bone deep through him.  He’d have left the Specials in a moment if the man had but asked, even **implied** that he wished it.  His uncle had expressly told him to stay away.  Instead, it had come down to **this** …  And he’d done it in such a public way that Jake would have had to take notice.  _

_Not only that, though; he had done it on a colony where he had **known** Jake would be.  He had used his real name, coming in, carrying a passport with his real information **on** him when he died, so that flags would be raised.  That left a clear enough image of what he wanted – a trail left for him to pick up.  He’d need Treize’s help to keep the kid away from Jack, but he’d do it, some way or another.  The Khushrenadas had enough influence…  And that was only if he didn’t fucking put a bullet through Jack’s head for this before he could try filing another claim.  _

_At least, after deciding to kill himself, he’d had the fucking decency to make sure Junior was looked after._

_“Which department has the kid?” he asked after a moment._

_“Kid?”_

_He didn’t bother looking up, rememorizing the details of… of **Odin’s** face after so long.  “He travels with a boy, nine years old.  Where is he?”  He’d gotten so **old** in the past four years…  What was he now?  Forty-four?  Was he going to look this worn before he turned fifty?  _

_**Will I even make it to forty?  Thirty?**   Hell, some days, he wondered about twenty; the world was truly going to hell.  Reaching up, he gripped Lu’s hand on his shoulder with one of his own.  He was glad she had insisted on following him down here.  Hopefully she’d come with him to get Junior too; he wasn’t sure what he’d even be able to say to the kid, after four years gone.  _

_**Will I even recognize him?**   He couldn’t have changed that much, right?  _

_“There’ve been no reports of a boy…”_

            “Jake?” 

_“You’re telling me that no one has found him yet, then?”  They had already identified that his uncle had been traveling with a child when he flew in, long before he’d come down to the morgue.  It had been the detail that had made him demand to see the body in the first place.  Before yesterday, the colony had been in chaos with the coup, but it had been settled, now.  The report should have been filed as soon as his passport was matched to his flight in, but it was feasible, he supposed, that they hadn’t had the manpower to search before now._

_“There’s no missing person report filed.”  The soldier was consulting a laptop now, and frowning.  “We have him on the passenger manifest for the flight, but I can’t even get an image of his paperwork…”_

“Jake!”  _A shiver of discomfort ran through him, but he shook it off._

_“You’re telling me that no one could be bothered to file a missing person’s report for a **child** because they didn’t have the **proper paperwork**?” Jake demanded, feeling his jaw clench again.  _

_The man was beginning to look flustered.  “According to this,” he announced, gesturing wildly at the screen, “The only evidence that the boy was ever here is the manifest!  I can’t tell if he even stepped foot on the shuttle!  It’s almost as if the data’s been erased!”_

_…That paperwork had been there.  Jake had seen it himself, just three hours ago, when he’d printed it out.  He had the hard copies, but if this incompetent sack of shit was even close to being right..._

_“He’s rabbiting,” he whispered.  Hell, the kid was the same age he’d been when he ditched Jack.  Only he wouldn’t have had a plan in place before this like Jake – he’d be running blind, probably trying to vanish… and erasing your tracks was the first step to disappearing._

_Their old man had been dead for almost forty hours.  Maybe he hadn’t known what to do at first, but if he was going off the grid now… **Shit!**   He had to move now, catch him before he got off the colony, if he hadn’t already.  Forty hours…  He could be in so **many** places by now, even without help…  His only hope was that he hadn’t found an adult to attach himself to for camouflage yet, or he was well and truly-  _

            “Jake, wake up!”  _That **wasn’t** Lu grasping his shoulder.  Twisting, his fingers found flesh, and-  _

-

**August 12 th 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Jake!”  There was command in the tone now. 

            Gasping, he realized he was twisting _Relena’s_ wrist… and the only reason he hadn’t broken it was that she had already countered and had his twisted in turn. 

            _Fuck!_   Blanching, he immediately let go and threw himself away, trying to get his bearings.  He was in his bed in Sarracenia…  And he’d just attacked Relena for trying to wake him.  Breathing hard, he allowed himself to outright collapse onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. 

            _Just how far gone am I?_   What the _fuck_ would they have done if he had broken the princess’ arm?  Squeezing his eyes shut, fisting his bedding in his hands, he muttered, “Sorry.” 

            “No harm done,” she returned smoothly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed.  “You seemed like you were having a nightmare, so I thought…”  She trailed off, obviously debating what she might have done differently. 

            “Next time, throw something at me.  It’s safer.”  He’d tell her to just leave him to it if he thought she would listen, but he knew better. 

            “I’ll keep it in mind,” she noted serenely, reaching out to touch one of his hands, and when he didn’t respond, she shifted her weight to lay down next to him with his arm as a pillow, taking the hand in both of hers once she was settled.  “Would it help to talk about it?” 

            She was laying a bare six inches from being flush against him, for all that she was facing away… The scent of her was intoxicating.  Swallowing, he turned his face away from her.  “No.  Just… old memories.” 

            “Mm,” she murmured in understanding, threading her fingers gently through his.  The warmth of her was enveloping for all that it was only a tiny part of him…  _What would it feel like if I gave in and pulled her close?_   “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

            _Could I forgive myself, if I did?_   “No,” he murmured, carefully stopping himself from tightening his hands into fists.  After a moment, he tried to reassure her, “It’ll pass.  It always does, eventually.” 

            _If I hadn’t trained her, she wouldn’t have known the counter to that break._   Treize had been the first person to stun him into respect by immediately countering his thoughtless attacks.  Treize, then Lu… and now, Lena. 

            Forcing himself to take a deep, easy breath, he opened his eyes and turned back towards her.  Her hair didn’t quite reach her shoulders, and was a dozen shades of blonde he imagined he could spend hours trying to differentiate the subtleties of…  Sleep tousled now, but all the more fantastic for it.  The heavy fabric of her burgundy nightgown was hitched high on her hips, but she had a pair of cotton shorts on too… and laying like this, the gown draped more accurately and revealed more than it usually would. 

            She smelled like rain and something softly sweet… he’d once imagined she smelled like innocence, but that hadn’t faded with her rose-tinted view of the world…  It was just _her_. 

            He needed to focus on something else before he did something irrevocable.  “I didn’t sleep through the alarm, did I?”  He’d done it before, when he was dreaming like that. 

            Releasing his hand, she twisted to face him, even as she shook her head in a negative.  “I woke up before it on my own, and heard you move.  Then you seemed upset, so I thought it would be best to wake you.  We have another twenty minutes before it’s time.” 

            Well, there went any legitimate reason to try to get her back off of his bed.  He liked her there a little too much.  Everything about her made him want to drop all his guards… and that would be the worst thing he could do, now. 

            Her lips twisting into the barest of smiles, Lena reached out one hand to cup his cheek; somehow, impossibly, his awareness of her _tripled_.  “Relax.  You look like you’ve run a marathon.  If you don’t find some peace before you get up properly, you’ll be miserable all day.”  Shifting her weight a little, presumably getting more comfortable, she added, “If you’re not comfortable telling me, you can at least sort the details out to their conclusions yourself, right?”  Trailing her hand down from his face to rest against his arm by her face, she sighed a little and closed her eyes. 

            He stared at her for another long moment before turning his focus back onto the ceiling and letting out an explosive sigh.  _Peace?_   The only decent piece of solid intel he had been able to get on Junior after that had been a current picture from Lu’s suit recording.  The kid had approached their contingent of MS seemingly at random with a _rocket launcher_ and tried to shoot her down.  The only reason he hadn’t succeeded in blasting her cockpit straight into kingdom come had been Treize’s quick thinking in leaping in front of her… and that had hospitalized him. 

            That had turned out to be a good thing, though.  If he hadn’t been admitted to St. Jude’s, Treize might not have reunited with Leia and found out about little Mariemaia.  If he hadn’t been their go between for a few years, Jake would have grown up without Leia’s influence… and he wasn’t sure how different that would have made him.  Becoming Marie’s godfather had given him a kind of structure he had, in hindsight, desperately needed after losing Junior… for all that she, too, had disappeared a few years later. 

            At least with her, he had known she was safe, just unreachable, thanks to Dekim. 

            _Dekim…_   Dekim Barton had been the one who shot Odin.  Even if his uncle had been looking for a convenient way to die, it had still been Dekim to pull the trigger.  At least justice had finally been meted out for that, last year.  The old man had been a twisted piece of work. 

            _And intel says Marie’s safe._   He may have stalled himself out in indecision, but that didn’t mean he’d been kicked out of the loop, for all that he hadn’t _done_ anything with it since Amsterdam.  _With an unknown, but healthy, protected…_   He could be okay with that, for now. 

            Hopefully he would be able to actually see her again before too long, though…  it had been over seven years. 

            And now he had another godchild…  He’d get to meet him properly in another week… 

            Smiling a little, he allowed himself to become lost in Relena’s scent, just for a little while, and doze until their alarm went off.  _Just a little…_

 _Just a little bit won’t hurt._  

-

***

-

**L2**

            Leia pulled out her phone, frowning to see she still didn’t have anything from either Odin or her daughter.  It had been weeks now…  She hadn’t noticed at first, since one of the other physicians had given his two weeks notice and left just a few days after Marie’s last call, but…  it had _really_ been three weeks since her last communication with them. 

            She was tempted to restart the line of communications herself, but at the same time… what if there was a reason they hadn’t called or emailed?  Maybe they were in the middle of something sensitive, and she could end up calling at possibly the worst time…  she didn’t even have a clue as to where on the planet or colonies they might _be_.  The longest they had gone in between messages before was two weeks… 

            “Dr. Keissler?” 

            Sighing, she flipped her phone shut and tucked it back into her purse, and shut that back into her locker.  “Give me just a minute,” she called back to the nurse trying to get her attention.  She’d email them tonight; provided, at least, that she wasn’t so tired she just collapsed as soon as she walked in the door.  They could be bad about checking their email, so if whatever was going on continued, it might be another week or two before she heard back, but it would be a start, at least. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            “So, what’s it going to be, hm?” the man practically purred in his ear, which only made Mat shudder harder.  He couldn’t…  He couldn’t let this guy do what he wanted – _God, Janny!_ – but he couldn’t do anything to stop him, either. 

            Janice let out another sobbing wail, however muted it was by the man holding a hand over her mouth, watching Mat with an evil grin as he began to bite at her neck, his other hand gripping her thigh.  She didn’t dare try to struggle, not when a knife was being held to her brother’s neck. 

            “Please,” he whimpered, even as he knew it was pointless.  Why had he thought it would be safer, closer to the ocean?  “Please don’t do this…”  He had no illusions that they would leave either of them alive even if he gave the ‘permission’ they were demanding to rape Janice there on the damn street, not when neither of them had bothered with a mask. 

            However hungry they might have been back in Slovakia, at least he had known their neighborhood well enough to avoid situations like this.  Their mom had been stationed there for a good three years before _Libra_ ’s Fall. 

            “Now, now, none of that, didn’t I say earlier?”  Feeling as much as seeing the knife come up to his face, Mat grit his teeth, determined not to shriek this time.  He had to come up with _something_ to get them out of this… and until he did, he needed to stall – to keep Janny from giving up entirely.  All the same, he let out an involuntary gasp as the blade sliced into his face again, clenching his fists and trying to hold still so the fucker didn’t slip and slash one of his eyes-

            But suddenly, the man shuddered, and his grip went slack.  Even before the knife managed to clatter to the ground, Mat was shoving himself out of man’s loosening grip, flinching down and to the side out of reflex more than anything… then staring in disbelief at the body of his attacker crumpled facedown on the ground, the hilt of a bigass _dagger_ sticking out of the back of his neck. 

            “I’m not a big fan of torture,” a new voice said flatly.  “I don’t tolerate that shit on my turf.”  Stepping out of the shadows, Mat could see it was a tall man maybe a few years older than him with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, casually aiming a gun in a steady hand.  “You’ve got to be new here, not to know that.”  His mouth twisted in a rictus of a smile as he added, “But you must never have even _heard_ of Amsterdam if you thought you had to do this kind of shit to get laid, which I don’t buy.  Let the girl go, and I’ll _think_ about pointing you in the direction of the red-light.” 

            Janny seemed to come out of her shock then, and began to struggle, kicking and flailing before her captor snatched up a fistful of her hair and flicked out a switchblade to hold it to _her_ neck.  “Don’t make this difficult, buddy,” he snarled back.  “Back off or the girl’s _dead_ on your turf.” 

            “Wrong answer,” a more feminine voice announced, even as the side of the man’s neck erupted in a fountain of blood, and Janny shrieked.  The thug reflexively reached for the injury, letting her stumble and fall to her hands and knees, and the woman who had saved her casually kicked the man’s knees out and shoved him to one side, dispassionately watching him bleed out. 

            Mat’s savior tucked his gun into the back of his pants.  “That was a little messy, don’t you think?” 

            She snorted.  “Not everyone can aim perfectly between the second and third vertebrae, Kay.  I wanted to make sure he went down on the first strike.”  Sighing, she crouched down and offered Janice a sad smile.  “Hey, sweetie,” she murmured.  “Are you okay?” 

            His sister just started to sob harder.  The woman grimaced a little, making placating gestures with her hands.  “Honey, I need you to quiet down a bit.  I think you’ve had about all the attention you can handle for tonight already, huh?” 

            …These people had really just come out of nowhere to save them? 

            Almost as if in answer, the man sighed and crouched down beside him, mouth quirking in an uncomfortable sort of grimace.  “Looks like that sadist got you pretty good, kid.  Was it just your face, or he slice you up anywhere else on top of that?” 

            Mat swallowed hard.  He didn’t _seem_ like he was about to take advantage of them in turn…  And he’d heard the locals weren’t supposed to be as bad as the rest anyway, though he didn’t know how true that was.  They’d been speaking English, same as the guys who’d grabbed Janny, but the Dutch accent was heavy on both. 

            _Either way, there’s nothing for it now._   At this point, he had to admit he had no control… so what could it hurt?  “Just this,” he muttered, gesturing at his face. 

            The guy nodded a little as though he’d expected as much.  “Well, either way, you’re going to need to get that cleaned up.”  He hand out a gloved hand to shake.  “I’m Kasey von Koll, leader of the Devil’s Get.  We try and keep these parts more peaceable than this, generally.  That over there is my wife, Melissa.”  Pursing his lips for a minute, looking over the two bodies, he noted, “If you’re okay with waiting a few minutes while we take care of this mess, I’ll see what I can do about your face.  It looks like you might need stitches, and I’m pretty good with a needle.” 

            “It’s true,” the woman, Melissa, announced, and Mat looked up to find her with Janny tucked tight against her chest in a hug.  Winking at him, she offered, “He does all our mending at home.” 

            Kasey rolled his eyes, moving to take his knife back out of the corpse beside him.  “Only because she’s lazy,” he insisted playfully, beginning to rifle through the man’s pockets.  “’Liss, do you think we should call one of the others and get some help with this?  I’ve got no issue with dropping these assholes in the nearest dumpster, but I don’t remember if the Militia has any sort of protocol about the non-affiliated.” 

            “If they’re out of the street, the cops aren’t going to take the time to care, and the Militia will know the whole story within a day or so anyway,” Melissa dismissed.  “Besides, who’s going to report this?  I don’t think the cops have even been _out_ here in two months.  People having an issue anymore call _us_.”  Narrowing her eyes at Mat, she added, “You shouldn’t be out like this after dark, you know.  You _have_ to be new to town to not know that.” 

            Mat shifted uncomfortably, trying to not think about the burning heat that made up the left side of his face.  “We don’t have anywhere _to_ go, yet,” he admitted.  “We just got in today.” 

            She nodded decisively.  “Then first thing tomorrow, you find yourselves a crew to match up with, and settle in tight.  There’s a few around here that wouldn’t mind a few more people; I’ll give you some names before the night’s out.  The city’s a dangerous place; never go anywhere without someone to watch your back.”  She glanced back to the thirteen-year-old tucked into her embrace.  “Someone who can fight back.” 

            Mat nodded a little, feeling dizzy.  “Right.  Um, okay.” 

            Kasey reached over and dropped a wallet into his lap.  “Here.  He’s not using it.  It’ll give you a start of something to bargain with, at least.  The phone might go for something too, depending on how many minutes it’s got left.”  The phone and a few pieces of jewelry and other odds and ends were added to his lap as he stared dumbly, before his savior hefted the body and stood… moving for the dumpster a few yards down the alley. 

            He was really just…? 

            The woman tossed him a knowing, but sharp look.  “You take what you can get around here, my young friend.  I don’t know where you came from that made you think coming here would be a good idea, but…”  Her smile was sardonic.  “Welcome to Amsterdam.” 

-

***

-

**_May 29 th 195 – Newport, Sanc – Palace Grounds_ **

            _Noin sighed as she woke up, and pulled the blanket more securely around herself, loving the way it squished around her. **Bedding is one thing that just isn’t worth skimping on,** she decided with relish.  **It certainly makes sleeping naked less weird of an idea, at any rate.**   _

_She grinned impishly and wriggled a little deeper in a fashion she **knew** was utterly girlish, but just couldn’t give a damn about.  **A girl could get used to this.**   Stretching one arm to the far side, she rolled over to give her prince a good morning he wasn’t likely to forget… _

_…and groaned when all she found was empty space. **Not that, though.**_

_Sitting up, she gave a rueful shake of her head as she looked out the windows at the morning light.  Sometimes, Zechs could just get to be all work and no play… **Getting the guy to sleep in might qualify as a miracle.**   Grinning again, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and took the blanket with her, wrapping it securely around herself as she did.  It shouldn’t take her too long to find him… and it wasn’t like there was anyone else around in this place, not yet.  They were working on that, but for now…  _

_For now, she could walk around in nothing but a feather blanket looking for her lover, if she damn well pleased.  And even if he meant for Relena to rule, that didn’t make him any less a prince of the place…  She didn’t know the girl all that well, yet, but she knew enough to figure they’d always have rooms set aside for them here.  Big, royal, rooms, probably.  The Peacecraft siblings had an alarmingly natural talent for pomp and drama, seemingly genetic even._

_**Mm, now there’s a thought.**   Not any time soon, of course, but kids were something she wanted eventually.  _

_She shivered slightly as she moved out onto the balcony overlooking the ocean.  The view was worth the chill, though… and it only felt cold because she’d spent the majority of her life in Italy and Tanzania.  She would adapt, probably faster than she expected._

_Distracting as the view was, however, Zechs was more so.  Already dressed in khakis and a pressed white shirt, he was leaning against the railing, sea breeze whipping his hair about.  However prim and proper he tried to be… he was still enchanting.  He matched, here, his hair nearly as pale as the palace itself, eyes some mix color of the morning sky and sea.  He seemed to be lost in thought, so she moved over to stand next to him, suppressing a shiver as she stood beside him and leaned forward to try and look over the railing directly down the cliffs._

_The vertigo of the sheer drop gave her a rushing, heady feeling, and she smiled broadly as she took in a deep breath.  She’d always loved heights…  Her father had teased her when she began flight school that he’d always known she was meant to have wings.  Zechs had never understood, but it seemed to amuse him, how she could convince Jake to crawl to the edge of a cliff with her on their bellies just to stare down.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like heights…_

_**He just grew up**_ **here _,_** _she decided.  If you had seen this every day of your life as a baby, it was probably strange to live so close to the ground all the time._

_“Noin…”_

_“Zechs,” she returned cheerfully, shifting back to her full height as she greeted him.  Not that it meant much, with how tall he was, but the point was that he knew her attention was on him.  He could be startlingly insecure about some things, even while he never seemed to consider others._

_So often in the past, he’d shied away from her attention… and she had let him, because it seemed he’d needed the space.  Now, though…_

_They were past that, now.  He’d avenged his family, and could reclaim his kingdom…  ‘Zechs Marquise’ could just disappear now, and he could come back into the light as Milliardo Peacecraft; Treize had already said he’d arrange for him to be presumed dead, if they wanted to take that route.  The whole reason behind that mask had finally come to be._

_Treize had accepted her resignation papers with a smile and a shooing motion; her father had given her a level look and informed her that if she was planning on eloping, she’d better invite him all the same.  Cassie had squealed and demanded she be let know juicy details she had no intention of ever giving **anyone** … on threat of giving **her** details she wouldn’t appreciate – and might in fact scar her for life – if she didn’t comply.  _

_Thankfully, her dad had shut that down as soon as it started._

_Suddenly, she really took in his clothes again, and frowned.  “What are you up to?” she asked.  They’d been working to actively remodel the palace, clean it up, before they went to get Relena.  It was dirty, sweaty work… not the kind of thing you wore a pressed shirt for.  Granted, he could get a little odd about breakfast formalities, or what you wore where… but that hadn’t stopped him from staying away from the color white over the past few days they’d been here._

_He finally focused on her, and paused.  “Is that all you’re wearing?”_

_“My pajamas seem to have absconded sometime during the night,” she informed him naughtily.  Offering him a quizzical look, she added, “Didn’t you have something to do with that?  I’d have **sworn** you did…”  _

_He closed his eyes, a faint blush rising to his cheeks.  “Of course.”_

_Rolling her eyes, she leaned against him, and after another long moment, he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her.  “Relax,” she soothed.  “Tell me what’s bothering you.”_

_He sighed.  “I can’t stay here, Noin.”_

_“I don’t see why not.”_

_“I-”_

-

**August 13 th 198 – Wednesday – Bolivia**

            Lucrezia lurched awake with a gasp, one hand to her chest.  Residual disappointment coiled in her belly like a live creature, and with a growl, she threw aside her blankets and rolled to her feet.  Leaning against the wall with one hand, she forced herself to take a few deep breaths… and began ruthlessly crushing the emotions trying to twine around her like a damn cat. 

            _Fucking castles in the sky._   That was all it had ever been.  She’d been willing to give up everything for him – _had_ , multiple times… and every time, he’d give her enough to make her think he maybe felt the same… and leave again.  Not too long after he had gone, she would hear either from him or about him, and she would start the pursuit again, prove again just how invaluable she was, make him realize how much he really needed her…  And he would acknowledge it.  He would thank her and he’d look at her in that way that she’d _known_ meant love… and then he was gone again. 

            Even _Jake_ was better at keeping in touch with his thrice-damned family than that, and she should have realized it.  In hindsight, it seemed painfully obvious that he had been stringing her along _because_ she was useful…  Hell, her interference and refusal to fight him at _Libra_ might have even been one of the key factors to its fall on the Americas. 

            She’d fallen in love with a genocidal psychopath.  She had the excuse of having been fourteen when she first kissed him, but it still wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to admit to, down the line.  Being young was a great excuse for being stupid, but the effects of _this_ …  _What did my little fantasy cost us all?_  

            Feeling empty more than anything now, she let out a relieved breath and turned to consider the shape of Odin’s sleeping form just a few feet away, debating if he had moved at all.  On some level, she was tempted to talk to him, seeing as she wasn’t the only one on this little ship that had made some colossal mistakes… but at the same time, even if he was awake, she respected that he might be willing to give her a moment to collect herself. 

            It was funny, on some level…  That day in Sanc, when Zechs had professed his need to leave… it had, in the end, been because of Heero.  They hadn’t had a name for him yet, but he had stunned them all.  His selfless sacrifice at the drop of a hat, to save the colonies.  The fact that someone that Zechs could consider an equal on the battlefield, someone who was definitely younger than them – though not so much as he looked, they’d later found out – had been able to give himself so completely to his cause without a second thought…  He had said that it felt too selfish, unbearably superficial and _wrong_ of him to leave the stage now, especially with the other pilot’s death. 

            And she had listened, and believed him to be too _good_ to just let the world’s problems go.  Damn her, but she’d eaten it right up. 

            Sitting back down on her makeshift bed – nothing like the one she had shared in Sanc with Zechs – she made up her mind. 

            “The first time I saw you,” she muttered into the silence, “I thought you were twelve.” 

            There was a long moment where he didn’t answer, and she debated whether he really was asleep… or maybe just as superficial as every other man she’d ever met, keeping an illusion of grandeur about himself- 

            Then he rolled his shoulders.  “Puberty came late.” 

            She laughed, suddenly feeling a million times better.  “I laughed, you know, at your file for the Sanc academy.” 

            “It seemed as appropriate as anything else,” he admitted.  “Quatre had filled it out without a second thought, while I had to think.  And it worked well enough.” 

            Lucrezia shook her head, remembering her inner debate over whether or not to confront him on filling in his date of birth as being the same as Relena’s.  In the end, she’d decided it hadn’t been worth it.  “Can I know it now?” she asked curiously. 

            “That would be hard,” he decided.  “As I’m guessing you don’t want another date taken at random.”  Turning to face her, he admitted, “I let Marlé pick it.” 

            _How sad._   His choice before had meant more than idle amusement, then.  The implications of that were daunting.  Nonetheless, she offered him a smile.  “You’re not about to tell me I was getting a fifteen-year-old drunk this last week, are you?” 

            He snorted.  “By my calculations, the youngest possible is seventeen.  Eighteen seems more likely.” 

            “Oh good, that’s one thing I don’t have to regret, then.” 

            She had meant the words flippantly, but he took a long time to think before answering it.  “Regret is worthless,” he told her finally.  “It will destroy you, if you listen for it.  Doubt will sap your strength when you need it most, and if you regret your life…” 

            He trailed off and she found herself leaning forward, waiting for the rest… 

            “…It makes you stupid.” 

            She snorted at the rather anticlimactic ending.  “Stupid?” 

            “I just woke up,” he defended.  “If you live by your regrets, you carry the world on your shoulders, and it’s not worth it.”  Shifting again, he added, “No one else will take the time to give it second thought, nine times out of ten.”  He made a noise that might have been a snort.  “Or even once out of seventy-three.” 

            _Hm?_   “Seventy-three?” 

            “There were seventy-three direct relatives of the pacifists at New Edwards,” he clarified. 

            She went cold as she recalled the details of what she had learned through interviews with those same relatives…  but while she had thought it was heart stopping before, she had only found _twelve_ people the gundam pilot had handed a gun to and offered to die for. 

            _Damn, but there was a **reason** Zechs was so obsessed with this man.  Relena too.  _ Dorothy joined that list, if she actually thought about it… and who even knew how many others.  He had a way of just _moving_ people, didn’t he? 

            “Of course,” he added after a long moment of her not answering, “They _were_ all pacifists.” 

            She started laughing helplessly, wheezing until she ran out of air.  It wasn’t even all that funny, actually… just…  Just that he _recognized_ it. 

            He sat up in the meantime, watching her, though it was hard to tell his expression in the dark.  After she had started to calm down, he asked, “Do you regret, then?” 

            That sobered her up immediately.  “Not always,” she admitted after thinking for a moment.  “Not anymore, at least.”  Most of the time, she was willing to write her mistakes off to the impulses of a young girl who had thought she was on the right side, and that most of the time, the ends justified the means.  She’d come to realize that that wasn’t always the case though, and she was better for having realized it.  “Sometimes, though… I can’t seem to help it.”  She grinned a bit.  “And maybe I’m being a little bit stupid when I remember it.”  Zechs had no power over her now, no sway; she had moved on. 

            Nobody was perfect.  Everybody screwed at least a few things up.  If they hadn’t, you just hadn’t looked close enough… or were such a love-blind fool you’d regressed into delusion. 

            “Sometimes,” he murmured in what, after a moment, she recognized was agreement.  “Finding a way to… make it right, though.  To let it go.  That’s the important part.” 

            Lucrezia sighed.  “I can’t disagree.” 

            “…I watched my father destroy himself with regret,” he said finally.  “I never knew why.  He said something about how one fool’s actions, a single bullet, could change the world with you at the center… and you would never know it until you could look back far enough to grieve.”  He paused another moment, then finished with, “He told me that the only way to avoid it was to live for the moment – to be resolute in everything I did as I did it, so even if I looked back on a mistake, there was nothing to have done differently.  Nothing to resent.” 

            She licked her lips.  “He sounds wise,” she offered. 

            “He said it as he died,” Odin dismissed.  “Anyone can sound wise if they don’t survive to live by their words.” 

            _Poignant._   “Yet you live by it,” she pointed out. 

            His tone was amused.  “It sounded wise.” 

            She snorted.  “It seems to be working out alright for you these days, at least.” 

            “It works every time I use it.” 

            _Mm, so does he truly not regret anything, or is he implying that he loses sight of his ideals sometimes?_   He’d only be more human for the latter…  And on some level, the logic between the two ideas became circular.  Letting out a deep breath, she laid back down.  They had a long day ahead of them, by the looks of things.  “I’ll have to remember that.”  Hesitating for a moment, she decided to add, “Thank-you.” 

            He settled back onto one elbow.  “What for?” 

            Lucrezia shrugged a little to herself.  “For answering me, mostly.  For being you.”  That frank bluntness he approached everything with… that genuine clarity; his lack of guile. 

            “That seems like an odd thing to thank someone for,” he pointed out. 

            “True,” she agreed.  “But sometimes, it just is what it is.  You can appreciate an object for its qualities, right?  People don’t have to be any different.” 

            “Hn.” 

            “Just think about it,” she encouraged, wrapping her blanket tightly around her shoulders once more.  “And sleep well.” 

-

***

-

**August 14 th 198 – Thursday – Dachau, Germany**

            “Think she’ll be surprised?” Jake asked wryly. 

            “If she is, it will serve her right,” Relena returned easily, offering Vaughn a bright smile as he opened her door for her.  “She drops in on me unannounced all the time.  Besides, we won’t be long.”  They had an extra hour where they hadn’t expected in her schedule, and by the time they made it back to Sarracenia, it would only be time to leave.  She’d mentioned that it would be a better idea to do something silly to relax to Mai… who had immediately pointed out that at least one of Olivia’s komondor litters had been born last week. 

            It was, frankly, as good an excuse as anything else, and one of Natalie’s omelets sounded downright heavenly at the moment.  Also, she could admit that she was mildly interested in what the puppies looked like this young; baby animals were usually cute, for all that they were generally far more trouble than they were worth. 

            Natalie answered the door promptly and exclaimed rather happily before ushering them in and leading them in towards the kitchen, winking and announcing before anything could be said that she’d _known_ they would miss her cooking.  Before Relena could think of an appropriately teasing retort, however, she spotted Olivia nursing a cup of coffee at the breakfast bar, and promptly found herself distracted. 

            “Did you just wake up?” she demanded.  The redhead was barefoot, in what looked like a fairly scandalous silk nightgown under a thankfully thicker bathrobe.  Her hair was disheveled in a way that could only mean she’d only take then time to pull it out of an updo before falling into bed, with all the product in it making an outright mess.  Her make-up was also definitely at least twelve hours old and slept in, heavily applied and heavily smeared. 

            It was nearly noon… and it was, she realized, the first time she’d seen the other noblewoman look inelegant. 

            Olivia narrowed her eyes at her in a glower, not shifting her posture out of her near crouch over her mug in the slightest.  “This is _my_ house,” she noted irritably.  “I can do whatever I want in it.”  Sighing into her drink and sipping more, she decided, “Don’t make too much noise, and I won’t make you get out.”  She blinked, looking back up at Relena.  “Your Highness,” she added as an afterthought. 

            Mailin snorted as she moved to open the fridge.  “Were you that bad with your water, or did you just drink that much?” 

            “Either, both,” her friend returned, attention once again wholly fixed on her coffee. 

            “Was it worth it?” 

            Uncrossing her legs and tucking her robe around herself a little more conservatively, she noted, “It was right up until you all forgot you had phones.  Did you actually want something, or are we just feeling spontaneous with unfortunate timing?” 

            “Spontaneous,” Relena admitted, beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. 

            Her hostess sighed, waving her over to the barstool next to her.  “Well, done’s done.  How has your day been so far?” 

            “Well enough.  We just had someone reschedule at literally the last minute, so when I realized we were nearby…  It seemed like a good idea,” she noted somewhat uncertainly. 

            “Mm, in theory, it is,” her friend agreed.  “It will probably even work properly, should you try again in the future.” 

            In the end, it wasn’t too hard to settle in with coffee and lunch, sitting at the bar with Olivia while the others found places around the dining table.  The duchess even managed to pay no more attention to Jake than she did the other guards, which she could _tell_ had Jake relaxing somewhat.  Since reconciling with Dorothy, Olivia had dropped all her pushiness for Jake’s attention, but with how wrapped up he had been with his emotional issues, Relena wasn’t entirely sure he had noticed before now. 

            Any hope that he might start to level out more today, however, was dashed when Dorothy stumbled blurrily into the room.  “Natalie, _please_ tell me you accounted for me,” the heiress mumbled groggily.  “It smells fantastic…” 

            “I wasn’t sure when you’d grace us with your presence,” the housekeep returned teasingly.  “Just give me a few minutes and I’m sure I can manage something for you.” 

            “Mm.”  The noise was somehow appreciative, and she finally turned to the table…  and the stares she was getting.  Blinking a few times, she frowned.  “Fuck.” 

            Relena just closed her eyes; she could _feel_ Jake smoldering on the other side of the table.  If Olivia’s state of dress hadn’t given away what the two noblewomen had been up to the previous night, Dorothy’s left no room for doubt.  Her make-up was worse off than the redhead’s, hair littered with tangles, and she was still wearing one of her clubbing dresses that was frankly more of a long shirt than anything. 

            “Aren’t you supposed to listen at the door before making an entrance?” Olivia demanded.  “You’re sneaky enough, you _ought_ to have.” 

            The blonde turned a hot glare on her.  “You could have told me she was coming.” 

            “ _You_ could have told her we were going out!” 

            “I’m not supposed to go out without Jake,” she protested. 

            “Which explains why I have a livid _spook_ at my table!  You should have called and told _him_!” 

            “I didn’t want him to worry!” 

            “All you had to do was say that my guard was watching over us!” 

            “That wouldn’t have been enough for him, he’s _Jake_!” 

            “Coward!” 

            “ _Bitch_!” 

            “ _Ladies_!” Relena snarled, standing.  Enough was enough; they looked as though they were about to hit the hair pulling stage.  In the stillness that followed her interruption, she demanded, “Are you _quite_ finished?” 

            Dorothy scowled mulishly.  “No.” 

            In response, she narrowed her eyes and took a step forward.  “Then _out_.” 

            Pale blue eyes flew wide and the heiress veritably _skittered_ back out of the room.  Turning to Olivia, Relena pointed after her.  “Get her something decent to wear, and keep her from doing something stupid.” 

            Olivia’s scowl was a neat twin to Dorothy’s.  “ _My_ house,” she reminded her. 

            _Oh, so she wants to play authority games, does she?_   “My _planet_ ,” she snapped, gesturing at the door more harshly, ignoring Mailin choking out a laugh from behind her.  Honestly, it was ridiculous, but sometimes swaggering was the only way to make these women listen.  “Go.” 

            The other woman rolled her eyes… but went. 

            Spinning back around, she evaluated the rest of her people, debating what needed doing next.  Mai and Lin were trying – and miserably failing – to look like they weren’t running out of oxygen from containing laughter.  Vaughn looked… shell-shocked.  Mars appeared to be utterly fascinated by his breakfast; if anything else had been going on at the time, she might have actually believed he was lost in thought. 

            And Jake…  Jake was seething.  He looked tired too, and frustrated, which was something of an improvement, but the fury hadn’t faded either.  But then, the fact that Dorothy’s capriciousness had managed to nearly send him over the edge was a blow as well.  She’d realized he was upset, but he was evidently riding the line _much_ more closely than she had imagined. 

            It was past time to do something about that.  She had been hoping time and patience would resolve it, but if anything, he was getting _worse_.  He needed time away from their damned traveling circus. 

            “ _You_ ,” she announced sharply, pointing at him, “are taking a vacation.” 

            “You can’t afford the time,” he rebuffed immediately. 

            “Not we, _you_ ,” she argued.  “I don’t know what has you so wound up, but you need to at least make a _start_ on figuring it out, and it’s become obvious that I am _not_ helping.”  And God, but that little fact hurt; it was why she hadn’t done this after his verbal assault on Hayden.  She didn’t want to think that he was beyond her ability to reach. 

            But then, it wasn’t that it was beyond her ability, was it?  It was that, for whatever reason – and some of the possible motives there were _terrifying_ – he wasn’t letting her.  However, if he truly wanted to be pig-headed about this, then she would send him to people that _would_ help. 

            “Mai and Lin together can cover your role for two weeks,” she went on while he gave her a wide-eyed look, before he could think of a comeback.  “I’ll travel less, if at all.  But you… you’re going to go see your godson.  I know you want to.”  They had been planning on visiting in two days, but this would work better; she had _felt_ how relaxed he was in the Noin household. 

            “Lena-” 

            “ _Non-negotiable_ ,” she growled, slamming her hands down on the table and learning towards him with a glare.  She was really sick of feeling like a single misstep near her would send him flying into another uncontrolled rage.  She _hated_ feeling like she had to constantly _collar_ him to prevent an incident.  This needed to _stop_ before something they regretted happened. 

            More calmly, she continued.  “You need to calm down and find your center again, Jake.  You’re…”  Her words faltering, she let out a sigh and dropped her head for a moment before meeting his eyes again.  “You are too important to me for me to allow you to break.”  _Even if it’s you that’s hurting you._   “I _need_ you, so I need you to figure this out before you snap under the pressure.” 

            _I didn’t want to do this.  I wanted to be the one you came to.  You’re forcing my hand._  

            “So you are going to go and visit your godson, and do whatever else you think is necessary to move on, and _come back to me_ whole.”  Tilting her head slightly and raising her brows without breaking her lock on his gaze, she asked, “Have I made myself clear?” 

            His mouth twitched in an aborted expression, though what that emotion was, she couldn’t tell; his face was cold as ice, as blank as it had been during the attack in Brussels.  “Understood.”   

-

***

-

**August 15 th 198 – Friday – Bolivia**

            The base was abandoned. 

            However much they’d that, it was a relief – at least, for the most part.  After Hilde and Xutao’s reports of survivors in Louisiana and Texas they hadn’t been sure exactly what they would find here… but what they had seen since landing erased those hopes.  South America had taken far more of the brunt of _Libra_ ’s fall than North. 

            They had yet to come across a single sign of life in this twisted jungle turned tundra.  Evidence of fires could be seen nearly everywhere they walked, though it seemed to be in fairly contained areas; this area had been so wet that it didn’t burn easily, even if it was started by flaming, superheated pieces of space debris.  They had seen more than a few craters as well; some small, but more ranging between three and twenty meters across, the ground in them glassy. 

            Though, to be fair, it was hard to tell how much of the slick surface was from meteor fall, and how much from the thick layers of ice that made up a decent chunk of the ground. 

            It was one thing to know that two entire continents were on the brink of extinction.  It was another to stand in the middle of the remains of a scorched yet frigid rainforest, where even the trees free of char were black and withered, branches twisting into unnatural shapes.  No green was visible, the canopy composed of bare, rotting wood… and no animals made a sound.  The air smelled deeply of old decay. 

            It smelled like _death_ here, _old_ death… where no new life had started to take it over.  It unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. 

            He had never been so glad that Dr. J had offered him a choice that included not following through with Operation Meteor.  He had stopped caring about anything at all by that point… so much that he _could_ have been party to this destruction.  The Barton Foundation’s plan to drop a colony on the planet and send the gundams in afterwards to eliminate any remaining resistance had a remarkable similarity to what Zechs had actually accomplished with _Libra_ and the Regime.  If _Libra_ had fallen whole, it would have been more devastating than the original Operation M plans – causing a _complete_ extinction – but as it was, what pieces of the battleship that had dropped probably effected the environment a little less than the fall of A0206 would have. 

            It was good to enter the pitch black of the powered down military base.  In all reality, there wasn’t enough sunlight filtering through the decomposing canopy to offer more than a dim glow, even in the middle of the afternoon.  Indoors felt less _wrong_.  Something deep in his gut wrenched at the scenery outside, and would probably drive most people to panic, or at least despair.  Inside the base felt more like an abandoned resource satellite, or the disused service corridors deep in the bowels of a colony… a ship on its night cycle.  While human instinct also tended to buck at such absolute darkness, those were instincts that anyone familiar with space had long since suppressed. 

            And it wasn’t as though they had come without a light source.  They just hadn’t expected to need it outdoors as much as in. 

            Lucrezia relaxed visibly the deeper they ventured into the compound, and he found himself debating if it might be worthwhile to stay here for the night.  Their ship was well hidden… and there appeared to be no scavengers left to worry about, for better or worse.  It wouldn’t take much effort to get the secondary generator working for some auxiliary power, if they wanted.  This particular area had been hit so hard then evacuated so quickly that there might even be canned goods or other field rations left in the canteen.  It would be worth checking out. 

            If he could get the auxiliary power on, he could also search through the old OZ databanks tonight, with full access, instead of collecting hard drives and hoping the pertinent information he wanted on his father was on what he took.  This base had largely been used as a massive server.  If any information on Odin had ever been collected, it would be here. 

            It had also seemed like such an ironically good hiding place that he had hidden two of Quatre’s Zero drives inside the cases of the bulk of the computing hardware.  After all, who thinks a tree is out of place in the middle of a forest? 

            “I think we should sleep here,” he announced once they got the door to the mainframe open.  “We’re closer to the house I hid the next piece in from here; there might even be a vehicle we can use to speed things up.”  It would minimize, if not entirely eliminate, the need to make camp in the mockery of a forest surrounding them again; they’d done it last night, but he’d rather not repeat the experience if he could help it.  Using an easier means of transportation hadn’t been a legitimate consideration while originally planning because they had wanted to avoid drawing the attention of any survivors. 

            But survivors were no longer part of the equation. 

            Lucrezia let out a deep sigh, but nodded.  “Sounds like a plan.” 

-

***

-

**Khashuri, Georgia**

            “What’s wrong?” 

            “Huh?” Marlé looked up from her materials, blinking in surprise at Quatre’s frown.  “Um, nothing…”  Had she been looking all broody or something?  _Oops_.  She hadn’t thought she had, but whatever.  _Better give him an excuse._   Because she was _so_ not telling him it was about her mom.  “Just trying to make sure I do this part right,” she told him, which really wasn’t a lie.  There were so many details to remember with making a legitimate-looking ID…  It was no wonder Odin didn’t bother to do it himself.  You had to be, like, an _artist_ for this stuff…  and while Odin was awesome at most stuff, even his stick figures were lame. 

            Quatre, on the other hand, _was_ an artist.  And he was being patient enough to walk her through it as many times as she needed, and not annoyed when she messed something up.  The first time she’d tried to apologize, he’d just smiled and told her he’d bought far more supplies than they could possibly need, and that it had taken him more than sixteen tries before he got his first card just right.  He still slipped up sometimes, even, so it really wasn’t a big deal. 

            He pursed his lips slightly, giving her that look that made her feel like he was looking into her _soul_ or something, and she focused on her determination to mess up at least _less_ than sixteen times.  This was her twelfth… and Quatre had mostly been self-taught, right?  So she _should_ be able to do it, with him showing her how… 

            She really didn’t want to think about the fact that she was missing her mom.  Or that she felt _bad_ about worrying her for not calling.  Or that she was _avoiding_ her because she felt guilty about it, which made her feel _more_ guilty because she was avoiding her mom _yelling_ at her… 

            He sat down across the table from her, giving her a skeptical look.  “You’ve never been _intimidated_ even once before that I’ve seen you.”  He frowned.  “Or guilty.”  He reached over and took the half complete passport from her, eying it critically.  “Not to mention, there isn’t anything about this to feel bad about, so far.”  Setting it back in front of her, he added, “I already checked our supplies; you haven’t taken anything extra or pulled some sort of prank, so I’m at a loss as to why you’re swamped with _shame_ , of all things.” 

            Marlé blinked a few times, stunned… and frankly not sure whether or not she wanted to be annoyed that he’d basically hit the nail on the head in, like, five seconds.  It was cool… but kinda on the eerie side.  At least when it was her being all hysterical inside her head when she’d thought she was hiding it pretty well. 

            Odin, evidently, had had a point when he had plainly told her that she wouldn’t be able to get anything past Quatre.  She’d kinda assumed she had to be, like, _doing_ something for that to come up, but… _Huh._  

            _Well, he’s used to Odin, right?_   “I don’t really feel like talking about it, if that’s okay.”  He’d probably make her call her mom or something, and she wasn’t ready for that; and she was getting the feeling that he’d _know_ if she lied and said it was her colony’s night cycle right now. 

            The Winner scion raised both brows again in a skeptical look before shaking his head and focusing back on his own work.  They had quite a tidy sum of papers to fabricate, really.  It would’ve been totally daunting if it hadn’t also been a great way to learn.  They weren’t making them all for the same country or colony; Quatre had said he wanted a fairly random sample set, so they couldn’t all be linked together, or to one source. 

            _…How did he **do**_ _that?_  

            “You’d better pay attention to what you’re doing, if you’re going to beat my record,” he chastised teasingly, not looking up. 

            Her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips as she tried to focus back on her work instead of Quatre.  _I’ll figure it out…_  

-

***

-

**Bolivia**

            Once the power was back on, the base was… practically homey.  He was pretty sure that thought process was something that would earn him a horrified look from Marlé – empty military complexes didn’t strike nostalgia into the hearts of many – but he couldn’t deny the comfort of the familiar setting.  It reminded him of his time as Dr. J’s protégé, before the retraining.  The complex they had claimed for the project had been far larger than their small group could think to use, and in turn it had become a sort of urban training ground when he was bored.  Or an escape when he didn’t feel like dealing with anyone.  By the time the incident with the girl and her puppy happened, he had been under J’s wing for more than five years – and the majority of the complex was had been his uncontested personal stomping grounds for two.  He’d trapped too many areas for the others to dare venturing too deep, after a while.  Anyone but J, at least. 

            _I wonder if anyone’s ventured in since._   If they had, they likely became just as discouraged from intruding as J’s staff…  Which meant that in all likelihood, the things he had hidden were probably still there.  He really hadn’t cared by the time J had sent him to Earth in Wing, too set on _not_ thinking, but…  Come to think of it, it would be… nice, to have his old notebooks.  And the wallet Odin had given him.  The resources he’d scattered throughout the maze of rooms would be outdated, and he’d never held any particular attachment for most material items, but… 

            He couldn’t remember why he had decided the notebooks ought to be kept safe, anymore.  And he couldn’t remember the details about the wallet either.  The last passport Odin had given him had been with it too. 

            Lucrezia’s question from the other night came to mind, and he frowned as he considered the possibility.  _That passport might have my real date of birth on it._   He had only been…  Seven?  Eight?  It would have made sense to keep his real age on his record for ease of memory, if he had been that young.  The one he had procured for Marlé had hers.  Too many people were born each day of each year to really make changing it a necessary worry. 

            It had been a different passport than usual that Odin had handed him for that trip, but he had been annoyed enough that day that he hadn’t bothered even opening it and perusing the information like he usually did.  The clerk they bought the tickets from had referred to him as ‘Junior’ when talking to Odin, and he hadn’t thought much more of it beyond wondering why he’d bothered with a new ID when it had all the same information. 

            The urge to look at it _now,_ after a full ten years, was surprisingly strong. 

            _…Why not?_   Grinning a little to himself, he pulled out his phone and opened a text to Marlé.  _‘Next time we head to space, I want to stop in L1 for something.’_   It might be educational for her to try and find her way through his old traps.  Some were more amateur than others. 

            Setting the device down again, he went back to making sure he hadn’t missed any net-capable devices in his previous rough sweep.  Access to the database here was great, but only so long as it remained offline for the rest of the world.  The last thing he needed was for these servers to suddenly come online and at the Regime’s fingertips – it could cause an incident interesting enough that someone might make the effort to trace it back to its source.  Especially when it went back offline after a handful of hours.  It would be best if no one ever had the idea that they had come here. 

            “We’ve hit the jackpot on canned soup, it looks like,” Lucrezia announced as she came back into the room.  Raising a brow at him, she added, “Over six different kinds.  Do you have a preference?” 

            Odin shrugged.  “Something different from you.”  Variety was good. 

            “I’ll have you know I have perfectly good taste in soup,” she noted in an amused tone as she sauntered back out. 

            “I asked you to pick, didn’t I?”  She just laughed in answer, and he grinned again to himself, wanting to finish before she came back. 

            By the time she returned with dinner, he had the system booting up and their sleeping mats stacked to make a softer surface to sit on.  There was furniture somewhere, he imagined, but he didn’t particularly feel like looking at the moment, and before long, this room would be the warmest in the building; there were too many active electronics for it to not be.  Lucrezia had evidently found some degree of dishes in the kitchen, seeing as the food wasn’t in the camp set they had brought.  It was too bad that there was no easy way to secure running water too, but this was already more of a windfall than either of them had expected, really. 

            So long as they didn’t venture outside, he could allow himself to forget the devastation lurking just behind closed doors.  It would only be for a little while, but so long as there was nothing he could do about the situation, there was nothing wrong with escapism.  It was only cowardice if you were backing away from responsibility. 

-

***

-

            “Here,” Lucrezia offered as she passed where Odin sat in a lazy sort of sprawl between his open knapsack and the monitor/keyboard duo he had managed to dig up from somewhere for interfacing with the system directly.  He took his bowl from her without actually looking up or even shifting his stature much, which made her grin, so she continued on to the impromptu camp bench he had made.  “How long do you think it’ll take to reach your secondary site if we have a vehicle?” 

            He made a thoughtful noise as he stood and made his way over to sit next to her.  “Depending on the conditions, between three and eight hours.  Were you able to get a weather report?” 

            “I did,” she admitted, “But Howard point blank said it wasn’t reliable.  I hadn’t looked into the details of Paraguay yet, but he said he’d keep updating it for me.” 

            “The storm patterns in the area could be erratic even before the Fall,” Odin agreed, blowing on a spoonful of his soup – some sort of tomato bisque – and taking a tentative sip.  “It would be best if he could get a satellite view of the road, see if there are any obvious obstructions.” 

            “I’ll take care of that once I finish eating,” she decided, taking a sip of her clam chowder, savoring the warmth of it as it slid down her throat.  This place was… a nightmare.  Creature comforts made a real difference, in situations like this.  Closing her eyes, she asked, “Was there something in particular you wanted to raid the database for?” 

            She blinked as the weight in her hand shifted slightly, then frowned, a little dismayed, as she watched him bring a spoonful of chowder up to his mouth.  “I have a handful of questions that might have answers in it,” he noted after he swallowed, dipping his spoon back into his own bowl for more.  Little tendrils of cream spread in the otherwise uniform red of the food.  “It’s only a chance,” he continued.  “But I won’t know unless I look.” 

            Lucrezia nodded in understanding even as she considered the streaks of crimson in her own soup.  It wasn’t much, but… it was still just _wrong_ on some level.  The thought was entirely silly of course, but… 

            …Tomato sauce did _not_ go with New England clam chowder. 

            She watched with some detachment as he did it again, debating if the amount of trespassing soup was actually increasing or not.  _At least now I know the logic behind the choice set,_ she thought with some amusement.  _He intended to have both from the beginning._   While rather arrogant and assuming on one level, however, the fact that he obviously thought it was a foregone conclusion likely meant that this _was_ just normal for him… and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been aware at this point that most of his social graces had been inherited from a twelve-year-old girl.  The two of them probably always ate like this. 

            So while it intruded on her boundaries a bit, it was also communal and thoughtless enough to be endearing.  She wasn’t against sharing; she was just used to being _asked_ first. 

            At the same time, though… “I really don’t like my food to mix.” 

            He appeared to think about that for a moment, looking at her bowl, before nodding and taking her spoon from her and carefully catching the traces of tomato up in it.  Eating that, he handed it back to her before repeating the process in reverse with his own dish… then holding up a clean spoonful of bisque for _her_ with a questioning expression. 

            _…Oh, why not?_   Grinning a little, she leaned towards him and slurped it up.  It _was_ good…  just not while _in_ her chowder.  Licking her lips, she asked, “Do I get to know about what you’re trying to answer?” 

            He hummed a moment in thought about that before shrugging.  “It probably depends on what I find.”  Smirking when she gave him a dubious look, he added, “I’ve gathered that you need to _have_ a plan of action before you can reveal it.” 

            While his honesty was as refreshing as ever, Lucrezia couldn’t help but be a little disturbed by the growing realization that Heero had almost _never_ made plans before arriving at _Peacemillion_ ; though that might be why he left such a damnably impressive wave of destruction in his wake.  The fact that she kept learning how the man pulled nearly all his stunts with little to no forethought at all was… as daunting as it was inspiring. 

            “Hm, point, I suppose,” she admitted, focusing back on her own bowl and lifting another spoonful out… only to have Odin casually lean over and eat it before she finished raising it.  Snorting, she dropped it into the soup again and brought it to her mouth more quickly, glancing at him with her mouth full only to see him affecting to not notice at all…  Then giving her another of those focused, contemplative looks when she looked away, only watching him through her peripheral vision. 

            _…Oh really, now?_  

            Excitement starting to bubble through her veins, she rather slowly took another spoonful, and when he didn’t interrupt her again, she glanced back at him to see him giving her a terribly amused look as he calmly continued his own meal.  She was opening her mouth to approach this a little more directly, amused herself, but- 

            **_“Little less conversation, little more action!”_   **

            Odin exhaled sharply, glowering in the direction of his phone, on the floor by his bag.  “That confirms it,” he noted in a resigned tone. 

            Lucrezia gave him a bemused look.  “Confirms what?” 

            “She developed some kind of root access on my phone,” he deadpanned.  “I had it on vibrate.” 

            …The implications were, as usual, both striking and entertaining.  Trying to meld a broad grin into a gentle smile, she reached over and picked the device up, seeing as she was closer, looking to see what Marlé had texted. 

            _‘only if you show me how the hell you’re keeping your phone online without a local relay’_  

            She grinned, considering the message above it, and held it out for Odin to see.  “As if she’d actually refuse to follow you somewhere,” she noted idly. 

            He shrugged, taking the device and beginning to type back.  “No, but since she’s already mastered changing my settings from across the planet, she’s ready to learn it.” 

            He had a point, there.  Grinning as she watched the message was typing, she took another bite of dinner. 

            _‘Stop hacking my phone all the time or we’ll start survival training early.’_  

            “I like the ‘all the time’ caveat.” 

            He shrugged again, setting it back down on the floor and focusing on his bowl again.  “If she doesn’t try, she won’t learn.  I saw the potential for this when she designed the operating system, but I wasn’t sure _she_ saw it.  As it is, it allows for more adaptability, and a few unusual emergency functions.” 

            “Oh?” 

            “Certain words said aloud will call up an alarm and tracking information on the other phone,” he admitted.  “Others will start a recording of everything said thereafter, or immediately opens a connection between the two phones.  It took us both some time to work out acceptably sensitive protocols, but we’ve done enough test runs that it seems solid.”  Beginning to eye her bowl, he added, “We’ll never know until she has to activate one of the alerts in a real situation, but hopefully it will only be an overreaction.” 

            _Clever._   Smiling a bit, she held up a full spoonful questioningly.  “Your idea, or hers?” 

            He leaned towards her and took the spoon in his mouth, glancing up at her and pointedly watching for a reaction as he took a _little_ too long to drink before retreating back out of her personal space.  He swallowed and licked his lips with the same attention to her expression before saying, “Mine, initially, though she sorted out most of the contingencies.  Open communication lines in the past could have…”  He glanced to one side, expression melting back into something nearly melancholy.  “…prevented tragedies.” 

            Lucrezia resisted the urge to squirm, glad that he _had_ broken his gaze.  She didn’t care if he and Marlé shared every meal they ever ate; there was nothing _innocent_ in that teasing focus.  When he came out of his ruminations and looked back in her direction, she was ready, already giving him a level look, though she couldn’t help the hint of a smirk around her lips.  _I can tell what you’re doing._  

            He only smirked back at her, continuing to meet her stare for stare, daring her to do something about it, as he raised another spoonful of bisque to his mouth. 

-

***

-

**August 16 th 198 – Saturday – Nürnberg, Germany**

            “Hello!” Daniella chirped as the door opened. 

            The maid stared at her with huge eyes for a long moment, before pasting a large, if slightly panicked, smile on her face and ushering her inside, leading her to the sitting room…  

            _Oh, it’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?_   She very consciously did her clothes, hair, and make-up very differently than Relena, but sometimes people just didn’t look at the details.  Sometimes, they just panicked, then were so set on getting her comfortable that they wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. 

            It was… embarrassing.  For everyone involved. 

            She wasn’t going to let something as silly as what she looked like stop her from doing a good job, though.  With far more speed than she knew she was due – personally, she would have preferred to do her business through the main, not the head of household – Jayden Vail appeared with a worried expression, and Daniella, who hadn’t bothered to sit, spun and gave him a bright smile.  “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” she greeted.  “I’m afraid I had something of a misunderstanding with the woman who answered the door.” 

            He blinked at her… then began to smirk.  _Oh good, someone who **does** notice the details._   Such as the fact that she was definitely too _young_ to be the princess… though he was a man, so honestly, he might have noticed the fact that Relena had far more hip and bosom than the fifteen-year-old standing in front of him, instead of the differences in hair and clothes.  “I think I can see why.  Welcome to my house, Miss…?” 

            Not breaking her smile – men were men, after all – she pulled the sealed packet of documents she had for him out of her satchel.  “Fonne,” she introduced simply.  “My Lady Darlian-Peacecraft asked me to deliver these to you, and ask that you look through them as soon as possible.”  Shifting the strap of her bag on her shoulder, she added, “She also said that she should be available by phone tomorrow afternoon, if you can get back to her by then.” 

            “Of course,” he agreed, considering the seal on the package, and looking back at her for a moment before smiling.  “Can I get you something to drink while you’re here?” 

            Daniella shook her head, patting her satchel.  “I’ve other deliveries to make,” she dismissed.  “The car is waiting for me.  Thank-you for the invitation, though.” 

            “I understand,” he returned genially, gesturing for her to follow him as he led her back to the front door.  “If you don’t mind my asking, do you perhaps have any Weridge blood?  The resemblance is… stunning.” 

            “My parents were colonial, and both their lines went back to North America two generations before that, so I doubt it,” Daniella dismissed.  “They say everyone has a twin out there, right?” 

            “I _have_ heard the turn of phrase,” he admitted.  “I’ve never seen such a prime example of it, however, so you’ll have to forgive my surprise.” 

            “I get it a lot,” she admitted with a smile as they reached the door.  “So believe me, no offense taken.  Besides,” she winked, “there are worse people to be mistaken for.” 

            He chuckled as he opened the door.  “Indeed there are.  Please let her know that I will endeavor to contact her at… four o’clock, tomorrow?” 

            Daniella ran the princess’ schedule through her head quickly, then nodded.  “That should work; I’ll put it in the books for you.” 

            “Excellent.  Have a good day, Miss Fonne.” 

            She offered him a wave as she ambled down the stoop.  “You too!” 

            Not _all_ of Romefeller was stuck up.  Just a lot of them. 

-

***

-

**Paraguay**

            It was impossible to deny the sensuality of the situation.  The fact that she was pointedly not acting like there was anything out of the ordinary going on frankly made it more so.  That notion of conspiracy had drawn her back to Zechs time and again over the years, but this, at least, seemed altogether harmless.  Boundaries were being tested… and unless she was grossly misreading him, Odin was in the same ‘no comment’ state of mind about it. 

            If she said anything, he would probably suggest a perfectly viable alternative.  There had been several of those available.  Instead, he had looked her up and down in a considering way… and asked her how well she could handle the motorcycle.  Half the pleasure of the chill that followed had been from trying to hide her shiver. 

            There was probably something warped in her head, but this big secret that both of them were carefully tiptoeing around while casting each other knowing looks, dropping more hints, was _enthralling_. 

            Though his hands resting on her hips for balance while she drove the bike to their next destination weren’t exactly turning her _off_. 

            It hadn’t been like this in Europe…  There had still been doubt there, and any motivation on her part had been a matter of simple curiosity.  But coming over to this dead wasteland…  Some part of her wondered if the evolution of their curiosity into this _game_ was catalyzed by the deep need for a distraction from this place. 

            She couldn’t exactly say she minded, though.  She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much since- 

            His hands slid down to her thighs as he leaned around her to look at the road ahead, and her thoughts sidetracked abruptly.  After a moment, though, she licked her lips and found her train of thought again. 

            Honestly, she wasn’t entirely sure she had ever been in this spot, emotionally.  For all that chasing Zechs, teasing him, had often been thrilling, he had never teased back.  He had never instigated anything… had pointedly been either distant or indifferent.  That alone probably ought to have been a sign. 

            _Well, the past is what it is._   You made mistakes, you learned from them, and you did better with the next attempt.  And seemingly by the hour, Odin was becoming a more intriguing possibility for the future. 

            It was worth seeing where it led, at any rate. 

            Her earpiece started in a tune for an incoming call, and she frowned, decelerating.  While Odin had set up both their phones to maintain maximum function while in the American wasteland, very few people would _know_ that she was available.  Bringing the bike to a stop, she cut the engine and yanked off her helmet to tap the device.  “Hello?” 

            _“Lucrezia, hallelujah,”_ Howard’s voice announced, sounding anxious.  _“Listen, kid, where are you at right now?”_  

            She frowned – giving him a precise answer would be difficult.  “Why, what’s going on?” 

            _“Well, unless you’re still in the forest, there’s a hell of a storm heading up to where you said you’d be goin’.”_

            She looked around.  They were definitely out of the forest now, but she wasn’t seeing any significant clouds.  “What kind of storm?” 

            _“Hurricane level wind speeds.  I’d say you’ve got about an hour, but without something more exact, I can’t say for sure.”_

            “We’ve been out of the woods for maybe an hour, averaging at sixty miles an hour, headed southeast.”  Twisting, she frowned at Odin, who had pulled off his helmet too.  “How far away are we?” 

            He thought for a moment before shaking his head.  “Thirty, forty miles?” 

            _“That might be close enough, then,”_ Howard decided before she could reiterate what he had obviously overheard.  _“How sure is he?”_  

            “Fairly, but not entirely,” Noin returned immediately.  “At our current speed though, it would take longer than thirty minutes to make it back to cover the way we came.”  Looking back to Odin, she confirmed, “You said it’s a sort of manor house, right?  Pretty isolated?”  At his nod, she bit her lip; not much hope for cover any sooner, then. 

            The bike had proven to be the best choice for covering terrain in the end just because of the obstacles they’d come across in the road…  She could up their speed on the straightaways, but not overall, so it wasn’t a reliable way to shorten their timeline.  At the same time, though, it should be within range, and she wasn’t sure how long this storm might last… even before the Fall, Paraguay was known for them, and from what Howard had said, it only got worse with the weather changes.  “Shit.  We need to push it.”  Licking her lips, she jammed her helmet back on.  “Thanks for the warning.  If our reception holds, I’ll let you know when we get to safety.” 

            _“You got it; and I won’t hold my breath if you leave me out of the loop either, you know what you’re doin’.  It looks like it might keep up for a few days though, so watch out.”_

            _All the more reason to press on._  “Thanks.”  She started the bike back up as the line disconnected, but didn’t hit the gas it until she was sure Odin had settled himself again, flush against her back for better maneuverability.  For the first time since this ride started, it didn’t strike her as subtly sexual; for all that it certainly still felt _good_.  “You’re going to have to hang on tight,” she muttered unnecessarily, focusing on the road and trying to let her mind fall into that mental zone where her reflexes piloted more than her conscious mind.  She wanted all the speed she could manage without being stupid; the closer they got to Howard’s deadline, the more interference they were like to get from the approaching winds. 

            “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he noted dryly. 

            She _laughed_ as she gunned it. 

-

***

-

**Khashuri, Georgia**

            Quatre idly considered Cory and Marlé as he waited for the pasta to cook, the two of them happily focused on… something, he couldn’t actually see more than their heads from the kitchen.  In all likelihood, it was to do with the phones again, since they were all taking a break from fabrication.  In all reality, the papers ought to be done in a few more days – the kids both seemed to have a knack for it, and he wasn’t sure whether to be proud or dismayed.  He had assumed Odin would be done with his business before they were theirs, which, since it wasn’t going to be the case after all, was something of a problem.  While he wanted to move on as quickly as possible, to deliver their work and get up to space and find his sisters, he wasn’t willing to bring the girl back to Adashia with him. 

            Suddenly _terror_ , stark and fierce struck him, and he whipped around to focus on the children, immediately opening his senses to be less specific to analyze the threat…  _Nothing._   Heart pounding from the sudden adrenaline, all he found was Marlé watching him over the back of the couch, her expression calculating, before she smirked… and all he sensed from her now was satisfaction.  Looking inordinately pleased with herself, she offered him a silly little wave and plopped down to sit on the couch properly again, leaning towards Cory, head bent over whatever was in their laps. 

            Quatre narrowed his eyes, grasping the edge of the counter with both hands to help center himself.  _The little shit,_ he couldn’t help but think disbelievingly.  Never mind the how of her fiddling with her own emotions like that – for all he knew, it was a relatively simple process of focusing on memories – but she’d noticed enough to effectively catch him out.  In all fairness, he’d accidentally handed her the information the yesterday when he had assumed his old friend had warned her about what he could do, but…  However irritated he was for her scaring him like that for no reason, he couldn’t help but be impressed as well. 

            _What an appropriate set of emotions: she **is** Heero’s apprentice._   Shaking his head ruefully, he moved to check on lunch again.  He _hated_ it when the noodles overcooked… 

-

***

-

**Paraguay – Manor House**

            They made it in time, though it had started to feel a little close there… and it seemed like it was terribly _wrong_ somehow…  But at the same time… 

            There was something terribly _badass_ about parking the military issue motorbike in the middle of a done up mansion foyer. 

            The estate had ‘Romefeller’ written all over it, and it looked as though its residents hadn’t bothered to pack anything at all before evacuating.  Then again, considering the location, this might have been more of a vacation house, and it might have been empty during the Fall.  Either way, the place was… disgustingly decadent.  Though she couldn’t help but admire Odin’s sense of irony when he pulled up a floorboard underneath the family _safe_ to retrieve another of his hard drives. 

            It was almost disappointing to learn that safe cracking wasn’t in the man’s repertoire of skills.  She knew enough theory to consider killing some time trying, but doubted she’d get anywhere with it.  _Ah well._   However curious she was, it wasn’t exactly a big deal.  As it was, the house overall was almost like being in one of those expensive boutique malls, only without price tags.  It even worked with her metaphor that most of it was gaudy, tasteless stuff that she’d be pointedly embarrassed to own.  She would probably be terribly disappointed by the safe contents anyhow. 

            In any case, the estate had a better generator than the military base had had – didn’t it figure – and while voice services were too spotty to be worthwhile, she was able to talk to the Sweepers through email.  Howard had already indicated that it would be at least two days before the winds dropped back down to something approaching safe, but Odin had managed to get the water to run once he got the electricity on; there was probably a well on the premises. 

            So…  In a lot of ways it was like an isolated, all expenses paid, luxury vacation – provided you ignored the howling wind.  She wasn’t sure why, given the natural climate of the area, but these people even had an indoor sauna.  It almost made up for their inability to step a foot outside. 

            It still only took maybe six hours for her to get bored out of her mind.  She was seriously debating trying to find a stethoscope and try and see if she could work out how to crack a safe just for lack of anything better to do, when she found what appeared to be an inventory list tucked in with a few cookbooks in one cabinet.  It took her a moment to sort out what it was a list _of_ , but… 

            _Movies._   It had probably been due to the remote nature of their location, but apparently the people who had owned this estate had kept their films locally, instead of through the net like most people did…  And there were easily five hundred titles on the list.  _It can’t be too hard to find the drive this is all stored on._   It was probably close to one of the entertainment centers…  Though she had no idea what the majority of these were about.  All the same, though, it sounded like a half decent way to kill time. 

            _Mm…_   Grinning a little, she pulled out her phone.  The timing was hardly reliable, but texting _was_ still working for the most part. 

-

***

-

**Khashuri, Georgia**

            **_“I see you.”_**

            Quatre looked across the table at Marlé’s phone, faintly amused.  _Really, of all the things to have as a text noise…_   Shaking his head, he debated for a moment before reaching out and picking it up.  Odin’s apprentice had been getting a little stir crazy – evidently trying to figure him out had been the only thing keeping her still, and she’d rather bulldozed through that particular obstacle – and rather than put up with the increasing cabin fever, he’d told her to go show Cory the basics for parkour about an hour ago.  After all, it wasn’t like he’d be learning it from _him_ … he only knew how to fall and rebound, and he’d drilled most of that into Cory before they left the Sahara.  She’d happily insisted she could show him how to climb… and off they went. 

            In any case, it was easier to just have her get it out of her system, especially when the alternative was that her constantly shifting attention kept distracting _him_ from getting anything done.  Sliding the phone open to unlock its screen, he considered the message from…  ‘Lu’?

            _‘What kind of movies does Odin like?’_  

            He raised both brows.  _That’s a rather good question._   Before exposure to Marlé, Quatre wasn’t sure his friend had _ever_ watched a movie that wasn’t educational in nature...  _Lu as in Lucrezia?_   Amused, he thought about it… before shrugging.  It was the kind of comment the girl might very well make, after all. 

            _‘Why?  Are you having a date night?’_   Snickering a little to himself, he set the phone back on the table and focused back on the passport he was nearly done with.  He had no idea if she would respond to that… if she even got it in a timely manner, all things considered. 

            It was another twenty minutes before the phone again declared that it could see him, and there was a file attached.  _‘Maybe.  Do me a favor and have Marlé look this over for anything he’d like when she realizes her phone’s been stolen.’_  

            He laughed outright at that, wondering what he’d done to give himself away, but hardly caring.  _‘No theft; she misplaced it.  If she’s not back in another 90 minutes, I’m going looking for her.’_   He’d call Cory, really, since the boy had practically glued the device to his hand… which, in retrospect, was probably why Marlé had decided to leave hers with him.  No need to tell her that, though; for all that he was fairly sure he was talking to Noin, if he was avoiding letting her know he was alive, he hardly needed to tell her about the existence of his own atypical preteen. 

            Though Cory was technically a teenager, wasn’t he? 

            After another long moment, he gave into his curiosity.  _‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d be taking the time to enjoy a film over there.’_   It wasn’t really his business, but weren’t they in _South America_?  Unless, of course, he’s misinterpreted and ‘Lu’ wasn’t Noin… 

            The response was almost immediate this time.  _‘Inclement weather conditions; have to find something to do before I start climbing the walls and Odin decides I’m a psycho.  I’m guessing you don’t know what he’s into either, mystery man?’_  

            He smirked.  _‘Are you sure he’s ever seen a movie?’_  

            Again, the response was fast.  _‘I heard tell that someone started dragging him into movie theaters and insisting overpriced candy was part of the experience.  Not sure if there’s been enough exposure for any sort of /taste/ to develop, though.’_  

            Less than a minute later, while he was still debating if he wanted to say anything to that, came, _‘If you’re terribly bored without the twelve-year-old talking your ear off, you could ID at least a couple of the movies on that list I sent.’_  

            Not long after that, _‘Or not, really; I recognized a few, at least, and I’m pretty sure Odin’s not going to come out of the bathroom for another hour, given half a choice.’_  

            _‘…Hasn’t it been almost four days since you had access to running water?’_   Odin had been doubtful there would be any access to it during their trip, but all the locations they were supposed to be hitting had been large complexes, so evidently he’d been able to get electricity back on.  When a response didn’t come back immediately, he shrugged and went back to his work…  and had actually just finished when, forty-five minutes later, the phone went off again. 

            _‘Hush, you.’_  

            He laughed at that, too, wondering if the response had taken so long because the weather had kept it from coming through right away, or if she had decided to monopolize a bathroom herself.  _‘I’ll have Marlé text you when she gets back.’_  

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            Will sighed.  “Alright, kid, what’s wrong?” 

            Duo had been downright antsy the past day or so, and in an irritated way.  He’d been hoping he’d bring it up himself, but at this point, just _watching_ him was making him tired. 

            That, and he was bored.  He was getting better, healing rather well, but he still wasn’t allowed to _do_ much more than read and talk to people.  The fact that he was hanging out in the loft of the shop today instead of in the basement of the Den was a considerable improvement, what with sunlight being a wonderful thing, but that meant his only company was his son-in-law, who seemed like he was actively trying to stop himself from losing his temper about something. 

            Duo practically growled down at the case he had half pulled into his lap, then, seemingly out of nowhere, threw his screwdriver across the room, hard.  Will tried not to jump, wondering if maybe he should have just let it lie after all, but his son just bowed his head and buried his hands in his hair.  After a moment, he muttered, “They did it again in France.” 

            Will frowned, not sure what ‘it’ would be, let alone who ‘they’ were.  He was trying to be supportive, though, so he let out an understanding sort of, “Ah.” 

            “There’s nothing I can _do_ about it,” he went on, not looking up.  “I can’t go to France.  I don’t know anyone there that I’d trust to look into it.  These assholes are just blowing up innocent people for shits and giggles and calling it a rebellion, and I don’t know anything about them.”  Lifting his head so his hands cupped his cheeks instead, he stared out the far window.  “My network is Amsterdam only…  but what if they come here next?  First Berlin, then Paris…  We’re a big enough political hotbed here to make a good target too.  And if I don’t _know_ anything about them, I can’t _do_ anything about them, and if they come into my city, I’m not going to find out about it until it’s too late.” 

            And with that, he understood.  “They’re sure it’s the same people who bombed Berlin?” he asked, even though he already knew Duo would have confirmed. 

            “Same style, same supplies.  Regime let the information out, but I can tell just from the vids of the explosions themselves, not to mention it’s the same stupid-ass political statement that came out with the Berlin bombing.” 

            Will nodded, frowning.  Duo was smart to avoid border hopping, in all reality; he wasn’t all that recognizable, but it would only take one person, and _he_ had recognized the kid immediately.  Even if he found it an acceptable option to possibly get outed – which he knew the kid didn’t – he had Melissa, Nolan, Amos, and the von Kolls to look out for. 

            …There _wasn’t_ anything he could do but wait and hope.  No wonder he was wound up. 

-

***

-

**August 17 th 198 – Sunday – Paraguay – Manor House**

            Lucrezia considered her reflection critically, turning to one side.  The dress actually wasn’t a bad fit.  It wasn’t extremely flattering, but it didn’t look bad either… and she might just not be too impressed with it because frankly, she felt half naked without anything wrapped around her legs.  She hadn’t worn a skirt since she was maybe seventeen.  The diamonds she had found in a jewelry box were a nice touch of flash in her ears, though… a bigger carat than she would have chosen herself, but again, they looked pretty good. 

            It was too bad none of the shoes in the house fit; some of them were rather cute.  The women who had once lived here had all had much larger feet than her, though, so it was a wash… but still.  Free stuff.  _You can’t have everything,_ she mused to herself, spinning slightly to get an idea for how much the skirt might flare out when dancing. 

            After something of a movie marathon throughout the night, they had both passed out on the monolith of a couch in the main living room that frankly ought to count as a bed and slept until late afternoon.  They had mixed things up for breakfast with the discovery of baked beans and canned peaches instead of just soup – she was never letting Odin attempt to meal plan again, after that – and he’d wandered somewhere in a westerly direction afterwards.  With no better ideas, she’d decided to see if any of the closets were worth raiding…  and while the lady of the house had apparently been nearly as wide as she was tall, there had been a daughter or mistress in a separate wing with a similar body type to her own.  She had been a little taller, it looked like, but that was nothing that a good set of heels wouldn’t fix. 

            …She _almost_ liked the dress.  Maybe if she pinned her hair up… 

            It took a few tries, but she eventually remembered how to use chopsticks to pull her hair into a messy bun.  They were pretty too, with shiny bits of glitz dangling off the ends…  _Mine,_ she decided happily.  The dress looked far more appropriate now, just with that little change…  _What would shoes do?_   Likely just as much.  In any case, a pair of hair sticks fit in a saddlebag a lot easier than a ball gown. 

            Tilting her head at her reflection and watching the strands of shiny sway, she turned back to see if she could find a jewelry box in here as well.  The ridiculously large studs she had put in were the only thing in the master bedroom she found that she wouldn’t feel ridiculous wearing, but that might not be the case here. 

-

***

-

**Tivoli, Italy – Noin Household**

            “Are you sure you don’t want any help?” Jake asked, feeling a little awkward. 

            “You _are_ helping,” Cassie assured him with a grin, flapping a hand at him in dismissal.  “You just gave me my kitchen back for a few hours!” 

            He smiled a little, shifting the bundle of infant in his arms.  _So light…_   On some level, he was worried he would forget Lyle was even there, and drop him.  Junior had seemed bigger than this… but then, he’d only been three at the time. 

            He sighed as something in his chest tightened.  _Everything_ seemed to happen this time of year… but there were beginnings as well as endings, right?  ‘Everything’ encompassed the good too, maybe… hopefully.  It did in this case, at least.  “I’ll come help you when he passes out,” he noted, focusing on the child’s face as he wormed his tongue around his mouth as though he didn’t know how to work it. 

            He probably didn’t, yet…  He’d forgotten how _few_ abilities were truly innate. 

            “No you won’t!” Cassie scolded, giving him a glower that was more cute than anything.  “ _My_ kitchen!  You’ll stay out unless you’re invited, hear me?  I’ve muses to look after, and they’ve been neglected for nearly a month!”  Shaking her head, she added, “I’ve been going insane, sitting in bed all the time.” 

            He grinned at that too, making a half-assed bow – considering how he kept his torso upright so as to not shift the baby, it was frankly more of a _curtsy_ than anything – and made his way back to the living room. 

            He and Lu had met Cassandra Contreras in a coffee shop near the Lake Victoria base when they’d been thirteen.  The place had been quite popular with the soldiers for one reason: the woman making the pastries had _divine_ talent.  Though the fact that she was a cute blonde with an extremely bouncy, flirtatious personality had probably helped too.  The twenty-year-old baker had bonded rather quickly with Lu when his friend had brought in a sheaf of recipes for advice one day, and it hadn’t been long before they were practically sisters…  though that hadn’t stopped Lu from beginning to carefully guide the other woman towards her father just two years later. 

            “Your mom,” he told Lyle happily, “is a gourmet goddess.  You’re going to grow up spoiled rotten with quality food, and I’m going to visit all the time just to get her to feed me.”  The baby stared at him with a faint look of concentration, so he grinned and added, “And she’ll even be happy about it.” 

            “She always does insist that the way to a man’s heart is his stomach,” Des muttered dryly from the recliner.  “That’s hardly the reason I fell for her, but I’m not inclined to disagree either.” 

            Jake grinned.  “I imagine it helped, though.” 

            “It certainly sweetened the deal,” Des agreed with a grin. 

            The blonde man just rolled his eyes at the pun, moving to sit in another recliner.  “She tell you what she’s planning on conjuring in there?” he asked curiously.  For all that Cassie hadn’t baked professionally for almost six years, her skills certainly hadn’t lapsed – they’d expanded.  She took her duties as a housewife _very_ seriously. 

            Not for the first time, he wished one of the houses in this neighborhood would go up for sale, so at some point he could claim this wonderful woman as a neighbor and mooch off her more regularly. 

            Then again, he’d have to settle down first. 

            “When I asked, I got a ramble about the butterscotch calling to her, before she went off on a handful of tangents,” Des announced.  “So, butterscotch is somehow involved… beyond that, she likes to surprise me, and I live to oblige.”  He fiddled with the book he’d been reading for a moment, before tilting his head back in the direction of his son.  “Do you want me to take him?” 

            “He’s fine,” Jake denied, amused but happy at the man’s constant level of attention.  _This_ was how a father was supposed to act… possessive and attentive.  His uncle had always been there with him for everything, even idle thoughts that crossed his mind.  He’d known when something was bothering him before Jake did, often as not. 

            As he grinned down at him again, Lyle gave him a big, gummy smile back and gurgled.  Despite only being a few weeks old, his eyes had already darkened from baby blue to something approaching Cassie’s vivid green. 

            _If you turn out even half as cool as your sister, you’ve got it made,_ he couldn’t help but think.  Lu was about five kinds of perfect…  Des made ‘em good.  And, of course, Cassie was certainly a winner.  He’d probably grow up knowing more about cooking than most daughters did, but there wasn’t anything wrong with that.  When Lyle got around to looking for a girl to settle down with, he’d be able to win them over on that alone. 

            …He didn’t think he’d make a bad father, someday.  Nurture over nature, right?  Well, minus the assassination aspect of his childhood.  He had loved his uncle absolutely, but how he had thought of the things he had his sons do was just… beyond him.  He hadn’t understood the problem when he was younger, but he knew, now, that a large part of Jack’s panic on being released from jail was finding out that his boys had committed murder without a second thought before turning five.  He didn’t _think_ it had screwed him up beyond repair, but a lot of other stuff had happened since then… 

            He sighed again.  It didn’t seem to matter how well he understood that Jack had had entirely legitimate reasons for trying to take custody of them; he still _couldn’t_ make himself forgive it.  Looking back, he _knew_ he had shown all signs of budding sociopathy… 

            _Hell, I **still** do._   It had been Treize and Lu who had taught him to apply absolute morals to his actions and kept it from progressing irrevocably into the realm of psychosis.  It would have been all too easy for him to become a monster, if those two hadn’t stepped up to him and laid down boundaries with the same aplomb as Odin. 

            It had been that serene confidence that had drawn him to Lu…  It had drawn him towards Treize too, but that had come after their alliance; initially, they had merely been convenient to each other’s goals.  Lu, though…  she could stare down the barrel of a gun and sweetly _smile_ even as she told him that if he didn’t disappear the weapon in the next five seconds, she would fill his shoes with sand.  When – after he’d blinked and obligingly put it away – she only offered him a piece of candy before asking for help with her homework, he’d decided he was in love. 

            For all that he’d eventually gotten over that, Lu would always hold a special place in his heart…  Heh, one of his ‘beloved’, she’d termed it.  One of the few people he would do literally _anything_ for if she but breathed a hint of intention… and then she’d disappeared, and Relena had slowly slid into her place.  Only, Relena _wasn’t_ dead set on someone else, the way Lu had been…  But he couldn’t let it happen; not when it was built on a foundation of lies. 

            He’d stopped breathing when he realized she was sending him away, before it had clicked that she really only meant for a short while, that she hadn’t even _wanted_ to do it but felt she had to… 

            He needed to get over this, let it fade away into the wind the way it had with Lu, or she would _break_ him. 

            Focusing on the baby, he smiled again, though he knew it was weak with bitterness.  At this rate, his chances of eventually settling down and having his own kid were looking dim.  He wasn’t an idiot; he was entirely aware that he had enough intimacy issues to remain as celibate as a priest his whole damn life.  Someone had to make their way onto his list of beloved before he felt comfortable with uninvited touch… and in twenty-two years, only eight people had managed it.  Three had been kin, so that practically didn’t count, his mom and uncle had changed his diapers and he’d changed Junior’s, Mariemaia had been much the same thing, so that left four… and only two them had ever caught his attention that way – one of which had no interest, while the other wasn’t likely to think much of him in another month or two.  _If it even lasts that long._  

            _Nurture over nature._   His…  _Odin_ hadn’t ever been able to stand anyone’s company except that of his sister and her sons, as far as Jake could tell. 

            _Still… I’m being melodramatic._   He was only turning twenty-two in a few weeks, not fifty, and for all that he had doubted he would live to see twenty once upon a time, Lu had taught him to always plan for the future, no matter what.  If you didn’t ever look to the future, you stopped building one, and eventually, you might turn around and realize that everything you cared about had disappeared.  If you didn’t plan, you could wake up in the morning to find absolutely nothing left… and while that might not have bothered him when he’d been young enough to feel as though he had nothing to lose, losing the family he had taken for granted had taught him to take care.  Everything you loved was a precious commodity that had to be protected… because if you didn’t keep it from harm, then it was your own fault when the world shattered it. 

            _Live for the present, but plan for the future._   He did want a family someday, even if he had to adopt.  But that was… a suboptimal idea.  Kids were supposed to have a mom, even if plenty of people had proven they could get by without one.  And contrary to common opinion, he didn’t _enjoy_ being alone; his problem was that it was fucking impossible to _trust_ most people.  The world was too fragile a place to trust blindly. 

            He wasn’t willing to lower his standards on that; the key was figuring out how to make the process of building trust easier. 

            Des sighed, setting his book down in his lap.  “Alright, I’ve had enough.  Spit it out.”  When Jake only frowned at him, he elaborated.  “You’ve been moping about here for the past four days.  I was trying to wait you out, but that’s obviously not going to work.  So, now that Cass has skittered off, was there anything you wanted to talk about?” 

            Jake grimaced.  “Did I mention this is a mandatory vacation?” 

            He only raised his eyebrows.  “Smart girl; I’ll have to call her periodically and ask her to issue those on a more regular basis.” 

            Jake grimaced.  “She was worried I was about to snap.” 

            “Were you?”  Des’s tone was curious, nothing more. 

            He grimaced.  “Maybe.” 

            The older man shook his head, leaning back in his chair.  “She’s got her hooks in damn well, then, doesn’t she?” 

            “Yes.” 

            “Good.”  He sounded inordinately pleased with himself.  “From what I’ve gathered, you’ll be good for each other.” 

            Jake sighed _again_.  “It’s not that easy.” 

            “Only because you’re intent on overcomplicating it,” Des dismissed.  “I can understand why, really, I do, and I’m not going to tell you to put your heart out on the line because I know you won’t, even if that would be the easier route-” 

            “ _Easier_?” Jake scoffed. 

            “Yes, easier.  But anyway you’re not going to do that, so frankly, you just have to wait it out.  Worrying over the issue isn’t going to get you anything, so lay off and focus on what you _do_ have.” 

            He closed his eyes.  “I can’t focus on it without wanting _more_ ,” he admitted quietly. 

            “Well, that’s because you’re a greedy little son of a bitch,” the other man informed him cheerfully.  “You know, most men in your position would be ecstatic.  I mean, really, a _princess_?” 

            Jake rolled his eyes again, cuddling the baby closer to his chest.  Deciding to ignore that last comment, he asked something he’d been half wondering for a while.  With all the talk of relationships…  “How did you meet Sylvia?” 

            Des raised his brows at him as if to ask if he really had the nerve, before shrugging.  “She was my secretary.” 

            _And I’m virtually Relena’s.  Great._   “How chauvinistic of you,” he offered. 

            And he _laughed_.  “Oh, yeah, sure, blame the twenty something, not the cougar!” 

            He frowned.  “What?” 

            Des laughed again.  “Lucrezia’s mom was a solid seven years older than me.  I suppose thirty-four isn’t exactly a cougar, but most women aren’t too comfortable going after younger men for anything more than sport.  Sylvia, though…”  He sighed.  “Lucrezia inherited all her svelte, huh?  Let’s leave it at that.” 

            He looked sad, now, and Jake felt bad for bringing it up.  “Sorry.”  Sylvia Noin had been overcome with cancer the same year Jack had won custody of him, and while Lu had said they’d known for almost two years that it was coming, death was never easy. 

            Des groaned as he stood, and moved over, holding his arms out for the baby.  “Give him here, mm?”  Smiling up at the boy as he held him aloft, he crooned, “You’re going to be just like your mom too, huh?  All fire and bounce?” 

            Jake smiled a little, sitting back and just watching to the man talk to his son as though he could understand the words, feeling a little something, at least, start to unwind in his chest. 

            _Maybe Relena was right…_   He _was_ beginning to feel a little calmer. 

-

***

-

**Paraguay – Manor House**

            There was nothing interesting in the house’s databanks.  Well, nothing that he hadn’t already seen, anyhow.  He hadn’t really expected much, considering how little time had passed between his hiding his Zero drive here and _Libra_ ’s Fall, but it had been something to do.  At this point, the only _actual_ activity that was coming to mind with any appeal was to come up with a code to stop Marlé from playing with his personal settings without upsetting the emergency functions, but he didn’t want to start fiddling with that while she was so far away; even if Quatre would protect her, there were reasons they had built them in. 

            There was probably something worth consideration in the garage, but that portion of the building was the least stable; several garage doors had already been ripped open or off the structure entirely.  There was a reason they had decided to park in the entrance hall. 

            He heard fabric rustle and turned away from the computer screen he was idly staring at, and blinked as he focused on Lucrezia.  _Hm._  

            She offered him a smile that bordered on a smirk before spinning in a small circle, allowing the skirt of the gown she wore to swirl and the jewelry in her ears and hair to sway and sparkle in a distracting fashion.  “What do you think?” she asked, amusement clear in her voice.  “Will it make a good souvenir?” 

            _Souvenir?_   The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but he supposed he could appreciate the idea, so long as it was something that had a use.  “It looks good,” he admitted.  He didn’t know a thing about dresses, but she seemed happy with it; as far as he’d gathered, that was the relevant part.  Though in his experience, usually when women dressed up, it meant…  Holding up one finger in a ‘wait’ motion and turned back to the computer quickly, pulling up the file he wanted and opening it. 

            A few moments later, Lucrezia let out one of her low chuckles as music began to play, and he grinned as he turned back around and closed the distance between them, offering her a hand.  Grinning back at him, she took it, and he began to lead her in a waltz.  The faintly floral scent he’d caught from her before this trip was replaced by something else that wasn’t as enticing, but it wasn’t unpleasant, either – she’d likely been sampling the perfumes as well as the closets.  With her barefoot and him still in his boots, the top of her head was below his eyes, which was surprising despite the fact that he had never tried to compare their heights before now. 

            “What are you thinking about?” she asked, a smirk tugging at her mouth as the two of the moved smoothly around the room. 

            He smirked back at her, pulling her tighter to him than strictly required for the next turn.  “How high were your heels at Sanc?” 

            She laughed, eyes glittering, as she declared, “My boots were a perfectly respectable three inches, I’ll have you know.” 

            He chuckled, perfectly aware, for once, that most women wouldn’t consider three inches ‘respectable’.  Personally, he couldn’t get past the idea of how uncomfortable such footwear must be.  “I’m glad you don’t do that anymore,” he noted after a moment. 

            “Mm, too much effort,” she agreed easily, smirking.  “Running in them is really just a matter of practice, but jumping is something else.”  The idea alone made him want to grimace.  “Besides,” she added, a mischievous glint lighting up her eyes.  “I met a few short guys that year that made me look about as harmless as a tame little pussycat.”  She winked at him, tossing her head slightly so the silver shining in her hair swayed.  “I can’t let someone smaller than me be more intimidating.”

            He smirked again.  “How about someone younger?” 

            “You can’t help that,” she dismissed flippantly.  Giving him a superior look, sidling a little closer than necessary for the dance, so she was touching her chest to his, she decided, “I suppose I’ll just have to let it slide, this time.” 

            He had to struggle to keep his breath even with the motion, even as his feet steadily kept them moving.  _Is that an invitation, then?_   Looking down into eyes that had suddenly turned rather sultry, he hesitated only for a moment, continuing to spin her around the floor, before announcing, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, back in Italy.”  He _had_ had an idea, and over the past several weeks, those emotions had only grown. 

            Her eyes appeared to lose their focus for a moment, before becoming amused again.  “You’ve figured it out, hm?” 

            He felt his smirk tug a little wider.  “Yes.” 

            Her violet eyes _danced_.  “And?” 

            She liked his honesty, his swift decisiveness, didn’t she?  She had certainly made it clear over the past few days that she had no intention of taking the initiative.  Pleasure rushing through him, he slid the hand resting on her upper back to her neck and guided her lips to his. 

-

***

-

**August 20 th 198 – Wednesday – Khashuri, Georgia**

            Quatre leaned against the building, slowly exhaling a plume of smoke.  The heat felt good.  The heat of the desert, the heat of the smoke…  After Cambyses, he almost thought he’d never willingly stay someplace so warm again, but the heat meant other things, too.  It was home, in a way, family; everything he had felt with the Maguanacs.  And in any case the desert was always an oasis, compared to space. 

            He’d come out for some time to himself, to try to clear his head while his charges were distracted.  The kids were inside, and managing a fairly good simulation of being just that at the moment.  Cory was… buoyant. 

            The girl was good for him; he was going to have to keep that in mind.  Whatever the reasons, Cory was his responsibility now, and the fact that Marlé had learned Cory’s native Italian in grade school was helpful.  Quatre hadn’t actively tried quizzing her on more obscure languages, but she seemed at least passably fluent in three common ones.  He was rather aware that he had only caught the boy’s attention at the beginning for the same reason… but he hadn’t imagined that it might be so easy for someone else to replicate.  It suggested just how lonely he probably was, even with Quatre’s company. 

            Then again, she was also about his age, intelligent, and very extroverted.  He grinned as he raised his cigarette back to his lips. _Those factors hold definite weight._ She’d proven over the past week that she could be a conniving brat, but she had style too; he had to admit that.  Watching the two interact was charming in a cliché way – especially considering the fact that Marlé was either oblivious or willfully ignoring that facet or their dynamics.  Either way, her actions spoke rather strongly of her own benefactor’s attitude.  He hadn’t gotten a clear answer as to how his friend had _gotten_ the girl, but had at length decided that as long as he didn’t care to talk about Cory’s origins, he had no rights to hers. 

            In any case, she had a jarring ability to… _normalize_ a situation.  After effectively catching him using his empathy red-handed, she had shrugged off the strangeness and gone on like nothing had happened.  She had… dismissed his abilities as _typical_ , somehow.  He was debating if that was something she had picked up from spending a year with Heero – highly debatable, considering his own experience – or if that was what had allowed the relationship to exist in the first place. 

            Tilting his head up to consider the sky as he blew out another gust of smoke, he admitted to himself that allowing that easygoing companionship to draw him further in might solve his questions without any requisite answers.  He honestly wished he’d recognized that before starting, but…  _Well, it’s not as though it’s a bad direction._   By what he could tell, he might have headed this way emotionally without assistance… and frankly, it was the healthiest of his options, in terms of mental state. 

            _Acceptance without resignation…  Indifference without apathy._   He seemed to have largely settled into a very nonchalant ambivalence to his past actions… and he wasn’t sure he could actually condone that, all things considered.  It felt inherently _wrong_ … but he also wasn’t coming up with an option that wouldn’t walk him hand in hand back to a breakdown.  And breakdowns led to empathic blackouts. 

            He was, unfortunately, very aware of just what he was capable of in the event that he couldn’t remember which direction his moral compass pointed.  Before Cambyses, he had largely been willing to write it off as insanity in his bloodline.  After…  The only difference, he knew now, was in what was required to push a person to the state; what could _cause_ that complete ethical shutdown.  He could honestly say that he didn’t even reach that point particularly easy; he had met far too many who broke with startling ease… even zeal. 

            The only difference between him and others was that he had had the drive and _means_ to accomplish his goals. 

            Casually flicking ash down the alley, he tried to pinpoint how the effects could be diminished.  The most obvious clue laid in his actions while in the anarchist group; he had actively done his best to mitigate damages according to his previous beliefs, even while he had refused to let himself acknowledge them.  Some things were difficult to remember, given how deeply he had intentionally fractured his mind in order to do what was necessary _– just like Zero would partition him –_ but he had kept too linear of a course for his actions to have simply been matters of random consequence.  He remembered making key decisions… and remembered _not knowing why_ he was doing what he was.  It was important that he be believed insane… therefore he had developed a capricious persona to slide into.  He had _become_ it… but not entirely. 

            He _remembered_ deciding how to achieve ‘Robby’, and he remembered resolving that it was critical to _not_ retain that information.  He may have never studied psychology, but he was fairly sure that that… wasn’t supposed to work that way.  It was too… machinated.  Too…  _Zero_. 

            Narrowing his eyes, he drew another breath of smoke into his lungs.  He returned to that thought too often for comfort.  The implications, if he were to consider the idea with any validity, would be stunning… and terrifying.  The mind wasn’t so simple as a program, even one with Zero’s sheer complexity and processing power… 

            …so what if the System _made_ it that simple?  At least, to some degree – the human brain retained a degree of neuroplasticity, for all that the physical architecture of thoughts wasn’t well understood. 

            Though it was far from the first time, he wished he had never known of the system’s existence.  It was out there now, and he was past wishing the genie back into the bottle, but if he had never built Wing Zero- 

            _No._   He refused to wind himself down that path.  If he allowed himself to play the ‘What If’ game, he could rationalize himself into anything.  Blindly reaching out with a sense he had never been able to describe, he sank himself into Cory’s content focus, Marlé’s amused confidence… 

            A mother’s hopeful longing, a child’s frustration, another's misery, a source of blatant glee, a sense of conviction, a demand for attention, a bored curiosity, _rage_ - 

            Recoiling, he focused back on the sweet smoke clouding his lungs at his reflexive inhale, on his heartbeat, loud and steady… drowning it all out…  And carefully, reached down the familiar path for Cory again, to the exclusion of all else. 

            _Content.  Attention.  Quiescent excitement.  Calm. **Present**._  

            Leaning the whole of his weight against the wall, he focused on _not_ thinking about the Others within reach.  He didn’t know anything about them… he _couldn’t_ know.  Everything was contextual…  It was impossible to know _why_ they felt as they did, let alone what actions they might be taking… or _not_ taking.  Dropping the stub in his hand to the ground and crushing it under heel, he hurriedly tapped another out of the carton. 

            He didn’t even know how far away they were, or which way.  If experience had taught him anything, each of them might be in entirely different directions, at varying distances.  He’d never figured out a way to gauge his range, in fair part because outside of a few very controlled circumstances, dwelling elsewhere was…  Dangerous.  At best. 

            Lighting up, he inhaled deeply, and focused on that content static he could instinctively tell was Cory.  Marlé was starting to edge in on that the longer he focused… but that was fine.  He could tolerate that much.  Proximity, too, was a factor, even if he wasn’t sure exactly _how_ …  So long as she was near his charge, it would take a ridiculous amount of effort to feel one and not the other; easier to allow the inclusion, so long as he was aware of its context.  _Of its safety._  

            He had come out here to sort out his thoughts without such a strong influence, however, so once the panic faded into the familiar, he withdrew back into the sanctity of his own sphere… which he could swear was buffered by the nicotine.  Settling into the lethargy it allowed him, he tried to return to his actions in the Sahara… The reasons he had so ruthlessly drowned. 

            _Did I understand I would be able to find them again?_  

            _…No._   He had hoped, maybe.  In the end, that hope had been dismissed as extraneous.  He had been in survival mode; the actions had been necessary, and carried the least risk of irreconcilable consequences.  The fact that there still might be acts done that he could not bear to live with had been neither here nor there – at a certain point, it had been a simple matter of statistics.  He had taken care of his people as well as the situation allowed for… 

            …He had _claimed_ people to preserve his mind for. 

            Perhaps that was the key. 

-

***

-

**August 23 rd 198 – Saturday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Have you seen Mai?” 

            Relena looked up from her papers at Lin’s question, shaking her head.  “She tagged along with Dorothy and Olivia to the clubs last night; said something about wanting to see what all the fuss was about.”  Similar thoughts had begun circling her own head as well, to be honest, but… 

            _It would be a terribly bad idea, really._

            Lincoln snickered and dropped onto the couch next to her, glancing over the papers spread on the coffee table to get an idea for topics.  “ _That_ explains the drunk texting at five this morning, then.” 

            _Five?_   She wasn’t sure how late the girls usually stayed up when they went, exactly, but she was fairly sure that they didn’t usually see sunrise from the wrong end.  “Typhoon Marakesh on the scene,” she announced wryly, even as she felt something in her chest sink.  _She really **must** have had fun, then._  

            Though, at the same time, that didn’t necessarily mean she was missing out.  Her translator had a talent for whirling people into all sorts of interesting deeds.  Just last week, for example, she’d convinced Addie and Olivia to help her get a game of strip poker going.  In the dining room.  Without warning anyone not participating what was going on. 

            Relena hadn’t quite been able to look Captain Derusha in the eye since. 

            “I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t dial me as well,” she noted after another moment, largely amused.  “It leaves _some_ hope that she didn’t message half her contact list, at least.” 

            “Well, it was definitely to me specifically, so I don’t think she sent out any mass texts.” 

            …She wasn’t sure she wanted to know how he knew that.  “You two are as thick as thieves,” she said by way of agreement.  “In any case, were you looking for her for any reason in particular?”  Since Jake had left for Italy, Mai and Lin had been trading off on who took his place. 

            Her bodyguard shrugged a little uncomfortably.  “Well, more the opposite, I suppose.  You said you wanted to keep our looking into Mu a pretty exclusive topic, yeah?” 

            “Yes.”  She liked Mai well enough and was coming to trust her nearly as well as the others, but ‘nearly’ wouldn’t cut it.  The only people who knew she was investigating Mu were Lin and Dorothy.  Maybe Mai would be brought into the fold later, but for now it was, as Lin put it, an exclusive topic.  Dropping her paperwork into her lap, she focused on him.  “Have you found something?” 

            Grimacing, he shook his head.  “No, but it’s been almost a month since you asked…  I figured an update was due.  Sorry, but…”  He shrugged.  “I can’t really say anything one way or another.  She hasn’t done anything suspicious, but nothing that would eliminate it either.” 

            Reaching over, she laid a hand on his shoulder.  “Lin, I didn’t expect this to be a fast process.  We’re trying to prove a negative, which is virtually impossible on its own; long-term surveillance is likely the only way we have a chance to turn up anything.  A month isn’t really all that long.”  Frowning a little at his miserable look, she asked, “How are you holding up?”  Maybe she had been asking too much with this… 

            He blinked and lifted his head to meet her eyes, looking slightly startled.  “Holding up?  I don’t…”  He blinked a few more times, before grinning and shaking his head.  “Oh, nah, I’m just hanging out with her, Lena, it’s not like it’s real espionage or anything.  She’s not someone I’d normally go so far out of my way for, but she’s not bad company either.”  Shaking his head a little ruefully, he admitted, “No, if anything’s bugging me, it’s Jake…  There’s some weird shit going on with him, and it makes me feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?  Half of it, originally, was that I’m waiting for him to confront me on my focus on Mu, but that’s kinda faded out by now… at least mostly.  Really…  I’m sorry, but that shit that Mitchell said just made me worry more.” 

            He sighed, meeting her eyes again.  “There’s something they’re not telling us, Lena…  Something big.  And until I figure out what it is, until we find out what the _hell_ that fight of theirs was about, I’m not going to be able to stop looking over my shoulder.” 

            She debated with herself for another long moment, before deciding it might as well be all or nothing.  “Well, I have more to tell you, I think.  Maybe we can finish putting the pieces together before it all crashes down on us, if I’m more open.” 

            “You’ve gotten better than the colonel at secrets, Lena,” her friend muttered, emerald eyes earnest.  “I’ve known that for a while now, but I haven’t gone running to him yet.”  Smiling a bit, he noted, “You know, he _taught_ me that my loyalty ought to be to you before anyone else, even him…  I wonder if he realized how well that one would stick.”

            “…He probably planned for it.  Originally…”  She swallowed, her lips suddenly dry.  She’d known this for a while now, but saying it aloud…  “Originally, I don’t think he had any intention of staying, long-term.  Everything he did was crafted for self-sufficiency; he’s been setting you and Rome up as squad leaders almost from day one.  All his early interactions with me were designed to build my efficiency or self-esteem…” 

            “But then you backfired on him,” Lin finished, nodding.  Grinning again, he pointed out, “You kinda have that effect on people, huh?” 

            She smiled at that too, the pressure around her eyes finally fading.  “I suppose.  Either way, though…  I first wanted to look into Mu because of what Dorothy felt, but when I went back through all your personnel files…  It wasn’t obvious seeing each of you as you came, but after both sweeps and watching him train you all, it clicked.  He didn’t bring in anyone else who had strong loyalties in the past to any one person or nation.  Aside from Mailin, everyone was low-ranking, all aspiring hopefuls with latent talent that he must have felt he could bring out… but even Mai, she stayed out of the war entirely.”

            Lin leaned back as he actually thought about that.  “So you’re saying he went out of his way to groom us… potentially for a new faction?  Like, full Treize style?” 

            She grimaced.  “That’s the thing…  The only point where that standard falls.” 

            “What do you mean?” 

            “…What would you think, if Treize was still alive?” 

            Lincoln froze.  For a long moment, he even stopped breathing. 

            “Lin?” 

            He shuddered hard, reaching his arms across his chest to grip his biceps.  “That’d be…  Lena, are you just grabbing at ideas, or do you _know_?” 

            She frowned, worried about him, but she’d already started.  “I know.” 

            He squeezed his eyes shut.  “Lena…  That throws a limelight on every…  Fuck, the _only_ reason Mitchell isn’t suspected of foul play is because everyone knows Treize is dead.  If he’s not…”  He licked his lips.  “If he isn’t, then everything Mitchell knows, Treize does too.” 

            Her stomach dropped out on her.  “It can’t be such a given as that,” she argued.  “He dropped out of the war partway through.  He’s a Sanc citizen, and he went back while I was ruling.”

            “I’m telling you it _is_ that straight forward,” he hissed.  “Miller might be all over the place, but Mitchell and fuck knows how many other guys in the Regime are and always have been utter Treize loyalists.  We all know it, it just stopped _mattering_ after _Libra_ , because… fuck, Lena, _how_ do you know?” 

            “Chang Wufei,” she muttered, her voice dropping to match his.  “He sent me a message, in June.” 

            “You’ve been in contact with a _gundam pilot_?” 

            “More than one,” she admitted. 

            He let out a hysterical giggle.  “Shit…  Lena, I should be learning from you, not Miller…  How does that even _work_?” 

            “I’ll go into the details another time,” she snapped, suddenly feeling defensive about the fact that she _had_ been going behind everyone’s back when it came to her contact with Duo and Wufei.  “Dorothy is the only other person who knows.  The point I was getting at is that Mu _did_ fight for Treize during the war.  She’s never been a pilot so she wasn’t at _Libra_ , but-” 

            “But _Mitchell’s_ the one who put her on our team, and in the end of the day, she’s _American_ as well as a known loyalist.”  Lin shook his head angrily.  “Enough said.” 

            “I trust Mitchell to mean me no harm,” she half snarled at him. 

            “But do you trust him to not gossip like a damn schoolgirl?” 

            “…No.” 

            Mouth setting in a firm line, her friend grasped his head with both hands.  “Jake didn’t want her, too…  I can’t decide if that’s a point for or against him.” 

            “She was a known loyalist-” 

            “And so was Mitchell,” he hissed, eyes blazing as he glared up at her from his slouch.  “So were half the guys on the original night crew.  The guys that Mitchell claimed for the Strike Force when he split off, if you want to be specific.” 

            She licked her lips; this was information that she hadn’t had.  “But not anyone in the current one?  Besides Mu?” 

            He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, before shaking his head.  “No.  No one else in the new set.”

            She let out a relieved breath, feeling like _something_ had been achieved.  “Well, that’s-” 

            “It’s equally damning,” he interrupted.  “Because it means he decided to clean house after he realized he wasn’t going to move on, which means he _knew_.  He _knows_ , and he hasn’t told you.” 

            “Don’t make assumptions before looking at everything,” she hissed back. 

            “It’s either that, or Mitchell slipped shit past him, which I really fucking doubt,” he snapped back.  “Jake’s too sharp, too paranoid for that.  He either turned a blind eye or he was _in_ on it from the start.” 

            “What if David’s innocent?” she demanded.  “I don’t know where you’re even pulling this from.”

            “If by some miracle of chance they’re clear of this, which I don’t believe for a second,” Lin ground out, “then we’re even _more_ screwed.  Because if both colonels _don’t_ know anything, then we have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding anyone who _does_.”  He shook his head.  “Their history, Lena…  Damn it, Jake’s _admitted_ that he was Treize’s favorite spook, as Olivia put it, before the gundams came down.  I know for a fact that Jake thought White Fang was utter psychotic _bullshit_ , but he was _on_ the damn battleship as one of them…  Doesn’t that set off any alarm bells?” 

            …She hadn’t ever thought too deeply about that, if she was honest.  Now that it was brought up, though…  “Espionage,” she murmured after a moment.  “We know he has a history in espionage, and as… as a _spook_ …”  _Wet work_ , was what she had heard Mitchell call it once. 

            “Don’t forget _assassin_.” 

            “He wouldn’t hurt me,” she denied immediately.

            Lin blinked, then shook his head in agreement.  “No.  No, you’re right, not you…  He doesn’t do shit he believes is wrong, I know that’s not part of his mask, and you…”  He shook his head again.  “You’re _you_ , and he’s _your_ colonel now, for better or worse.” 

            He paused to lick his lips.  “But Lena…  Even if we go with the best option for _Libra_ , it’s still espionage… and for all our talk about how he _used_ to be in espionage but is still paranoid as crazy?” 

            She picked it up immediately.  “What if he never stopped?” she finished. 

            “Yeah.”  Her lieutenant sighed then, flopped back into his seat.  “They’re best friends too…  Even if Jake thought Treize had died, initially, it’s been three years.  Jake was the one who vouched for Mitchell to get hired into the Regime, even.  Dave would have told him, somewhere along the way.” 

            “Which puts us back at either turning a blind eye, or being part of it,” she agreed quietly.  “But at the same time…  What about the past two months?” 

            Lin stared up at the ceiling as he thought, and she took the time to roll it around her own head to see if any more answers shook loose.  What she found was… well… 

            “The best case scenario,” she began softly, “is that after the formation of the Strike Force, he wanted a clean break.  Mitchell took the loyalists… and he was re-staffing without the influence.” 

            “How pissed was he when he found out Mu got slipped in?” her friend asked tonelessly, still staring up.

            Relena focused back on the memory, on the little points of irritation she’d seen in his body language around the American woman since.  “Very.  He tried to hide it, but… he was upset, and I don’t think he’s stopped being irritated about it, even now.”  She looked over and met his gaze.  “He should have gotten over it by now and made her his own; she hasn’t ever made any waves, and the only one besides her that he hasn’t melded into the group is Carlisle.” 

            “And his problem with Carlisle is with his discipline,” Lin concurred.  Sitting up again, he rubbed at his face.  “I’m not sure I like where this is going any more than before.” 

            “Because if he tried for that clean break and couldn’t do it,” Relena continued.  “Then that means that his fight with Mitchell-” 

            “Is a damn good sign that he’s on our side,” he finished.  “Shit…  No wonder he’s a wreck right now.” 

            “If we’re even on the right track,” Relena pointed out.  “Everything points this way, but what’s to say we aren’t missing something integral?”

            He snorted.  “I don’t think it gets any bigger than the ‘Treize lives’ bomb, Lena.” 

            “Which, if we’re right, he doesn’t want to be the one to drop on us.” 

            “Well, it doesn’t exactly look good, does it?  What was it he was saying to Mitchell, about how the best case scenario meant he was the only one who was going to burn?” 

            “And David was just telling me that the best thing was just to accept him like I always do, no matter what,” she murmured.  “He was trying to tell Jake, before they fought, that it would be okay, that he was being all dramatic for no reason-” 

            “I wouldn’t exactly call it _no_ reason.” 

            She grinned a bit at that.  “Well, no, but…  He was right, too.” 

            Lin returned to his contemplation of the ceiling, for a long moment, before sighing.  “Probably, yeah.  If we actually know what we’re talking about then…  Fuck.  Yeah, we really _wouldn’t_ burn him for it, would we?” 

            “No.”  She worried at her lip.  “I think _he_ needs to realize that, though.” 

            “Yeah, I’m not starting that conversation.  I like my skull without any cracks in it, thanks.”

            She grimaced at that.  “Well, that too, but…  I meant more emotionally.  That’s what he needs to move past this.  Acceptance.  So if we can get over this before it comes out… maybe he’ll actually get past some of his issues.” 

            “Yeah, because he’d totally _maim_ a therapist,” Lin noted, only half sarcastically.  “That’s what _friends_ are for, right?” 

            Relena closed her eyes.  “Let’s just… give him some time.  If this time of year is as big of an issue as David’s making it out to be, then if he hasn’t talked by October, I’ll… do something.” 

            “I seriously suggest writing him a letter.  While at least five hours away.” 

            She sighed.  “I’ll think about it.  Hopefully, it won’t come to that anyhow.” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Please tell me I’m not the only one going “Finally!” about at least one thing… possibly closer to three.


	12. Finders Keepers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo cleans house, and maybe accidentally becomes a Dutch Mafioso in the process. Dorothy has maybe a little too much fun, and Relena shares notes with a prior RLTT candidate and comes out with more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Zechs finds a convenient soft spot and Marlé is continually in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Edit--
> 
> Really just typo and grammar fixes on this one, but Duo actually runs off with the plot for a while, which is fun. I'd forgotten how much fun Duo could be to write.

**_-_ **

**_ Ch. 12 Finders Keepers _ **

**_\--_ **

_Possession is nine tenths of the law,_

_-_

_But knowledge is what leads to power._

**_\--_ **

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**August 23 rd 198 – Saturday – Prague, Czech Republic**

            _“I’ll be another week at the most,”_ Lucrezia muttered.  _“This resource satellite is literally on the way back to Howard; it would be a waste to pass it by when it only adds a day or two.”_  

            Sally nodded, even though the phone wasn’t hooked up for video right now and her general couldn’t see her.  “The boys should be able to take care of things just fine in the interim,” she agreed aloud.  “I sent your girl out scouting, though, with a couple of her favorites for back-up.  Xu’s on standby if something big happens, but I think she really needed some fresh air.” 

            _“She’s had **plenty** of fresh air,”_ the other woman pointed out, though her tone was faintly amused. 

            “It was a euphemism for independence,” Sally noted wryly.  “The debriefs on that road trip were altogether entertaining, by the way.  Is there something going on that I should know about?”  Hilde had been downright convinced that Lucrezia was flirting with the ex-pilot – _Well, maybe not so ex, considering what happened in Sudan_ – and Xu had agreed it looked a little that way… and what they told her about ‘Odin’ painted a feasible enough picture.  If she tipped her head to one side and squinted, she supposed she could see the idea.  All she really knew about Heero these days was that he was different than before, and Lu had been spending quite a bit of time with him lately, after all. 

            Instead of the snort and wry remark she’d expected, her friend hummed in a pleased way, before happily announcing, _“It’s not polite to kiss and tell.”_  

            Sally felt her brows rise even as a broad smile crept across her lips.  _Really, now?_   She certainly sounded pleased enough with herself.  A genuine chuckle escaped her lips.  “Wow.  You go, girl.”  Just because she hadn’t expected it didn’t make it a bad thing.  After all, Heero had proven over the years that he always delivered, right? 

            Lucrezia laughed brightly in return.  _“I’ll see you next week.”_  

            “Have fun.  Not _too_ much fun, mind, but-”  She laughed hard as the other woman hung up on her. 

-

***

-

**August 25 th 198 – Monday – Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “Be with you in just a minute!” Duo called distractedly when the bell on the front door chimed, hurriedly wiping his hands off on a rag and grimacing when that didn’t seem to improve how they looked, moving into the bathroom and quickly beginning to scrub at his hands.  It was never good to keep a customer waiting, but you didn’t want to be filthy either. 

            His hands didn’t exactly come up clean by the time he had snatched up a hand towel and started for the stairs, but he wouldn’t be getting some kind of grime on everything he touched now, at least.  Technically he really should have been working hardware down in the garage, but Melissa had a car in there again and he hadn’t wanted to be crowded.  “What can I-”  He cut himself off as he saw it was Val, still in Militia khaki for the day, and grinned.  “Hey, what’s up?” 

            The other Devil grimaced, looking uncomfortable, and Duo frowned.  He didn’t look upset enough for it to be dire, but while it wasn’t unusual for Val to visit – the shop ended up being on the way between the Den and where most met up for patrols – he wasn’t acting social.  “What’s wrong?”  Melissa was on shift, so it was possible she’d been hurt, but Val only looked uncomfortable, not worried.  Karina and Renee were over at the church for a play date, and the boys wouldn’t be out of school for another two hours.  He supposed it was possible that Will had relapsed, but he was back at the Den today and Val was still in uniform; if it was trouble at home, one of the girls would have come to let him know. 

            _Probably something to do with city or gang politics, then._   He’d been hoping that his last object lesson would stick; he didn’t particularly enjoy beating hungry teenagers within an inch of their lives, but someone had to make it clear that stealing food from widowed moms wasn’t going to be tolerated, not in any way, shape or form.  The teenagers, at least, had the means to get a job, or band together into a group; Mrs. Staffan was rail thin and working thirteen hour days trying to keep her little ones fed.  The oldest was only ten, and if it weren’t for her refusing to go to school so she could take care of her three and four year old brothers, their mom wouldn’t be able to bring in _anything_. 

            He set his jaw as he finished drying his hands and Val searched for what words he wanted to use.  After the riot last year, the Devils had become a gang again in truth, protecting their territory and those living in it; no one trusted the police to be able to do shit, and the Militia could be hit or miss, depending on who you got.  When he’d recognized how much of the ‘crime’ in the area was really just people in want, he’d figured out how to arrange the neighborhood into a shared network, and a lot of it had leveled out.  It had been a hell of a lot of work, but it _helped_ , and besides, it was one less reason for the cops or military to come wandering into his space and figure out something they shouldn’t about him. 

            He didn’t _hide_ anymore, exactly, but he didn’t want the influence… or at least, that had been the game plan.  Unfortunately, before long his little domestic network had grown to cover over a quarter of the city and become a job link-up, and social stuff ran through it too.  It had gotten bigger than he could really keep control of, but was fine so long as people behaved. 

            So naturally, it had started having issues as soon as people quit being so scared that they thought being part of the community was the only way they were going to survive.  At first it was just tension shit, but periodically he had to give people reasons to not cause trouble.  After the shit with the Staffans happened last month, he’d begun using the fledgling gangs that had cropped up over the winter – the ones he’d immediately taken under wing and treated like separate branches of the Devils – to enforce it throughout their territory…  Because once it started, it wasn’t like he could be everywhere at once. 

            The idea was to make it at least mostly self-run.  Melissa had been the one to really design the logistics at each level, but he had understood before she had said it that he couldn’t try to handle all the small stuff personally.  Some of it, sure, but for the most part, he was finding himself more of a deterrent than anything.  It had gotten around that if you fucked someone over, Kasey von Koll would rip it back out of your hide without a second thought. 

            Depending on what they’d done, that was generally pretty damn true.  The kids hadn’t belonged to any family sets, but even if they had, that wouldn’t change the fact that if they pulled that kind of shit again, he’d have to do something to them that _couldn’t_ be fixed. 

            And maybe he’d get nightmares over it, maybe he wouldn’t, but either way, people in his quarter would know they were _safe_. 

            “There’s a situation,” Val admitted finally.  “It doesn’t really involve us, but…  Kay, I tried, but I can’t let it go.  The last time these guys snatched a few kids, the cops found them in pieces when their folks wouldn’t cooperate.  They got one back, but… shit, they cut off her hands.” 

            Duo clenched his teeth.  “Why the hesitation, then?”  Hurting kids was a hell of a way to get him spitting mad and up running, and Val knew it, so there had to be a reason he was all wound up about telling him about it.  _Maybe it’s outside our area?_   But that hadn’t stopped him before, and Val knew that.  He was friends enough by now with most of the city even outside their quarter that he wouldn’t have a hard time getting help, or at least non-interference. 

            Val licked his lips.  “It’s Don Fergusen’s girls.” 

            His gut clenched, even as he grit his teeth so tight his ears started to ring.  Yeah…  He could see the problem. 

            That was a _big_ fucking problem. 

-

***

-

**Khashuri, Georgia**

            “You’re sure you’ll be fine?” Quatre asked, more distractedly than out of concern. 

            “I’ve totally done this before,” Marlé dismissed easily.  “I’m good, and I don’t want to hold you up any, now that the borders are open again.  Besides,” she held up her new passport with a grin.  “I’m sixteen now.  Nobody will even think twice about me traveling alone.”  And she _really_ didn’t look like her old pictures anymore.  She could actually pass off the sixteen listed on her ID, though it was pushing it; Quatre said she looked closer to fifteen, but she had the confidence to make most people not _doubt_ sixteen. 

            She was keeping her old papers too, but now, if push came to shove, she and Odin could be Aurelia and Rowan Deloe, from L4.  She had her new birthday and address and life story all memorized, even.  At first, when they’d heard back from Odin that he was going to be another week or so, Quatre had been annoyed because he wanted to finish up… before he realized that she could craft the digital end of IDs as well as her pseudo-brother.  He’d made sure of that pretty much as soon as he’d gotten Quatre to agree to teach her the rest.  After that, he was eager to go back to whoever they were making all the papers for…  Until he realized that it might be rude to tell the twelve-year-old he was looking after to get lost. 

            Well, not in those words.  But it was flattering that it hadn’t seemed to occur to him that she might _not_ be fine until he remembered Cory was older than her.  She didn’t really need any looking after anymore, but it was sweet of him to think about it and offer to, if she wanted. 

            Besides, she hadn’t seen Amos in a while, so she figured she might as well head back that way.  Maybe wander a little bit on the way; she wouldn’t mind seeing Athens again if the trains ran through there, but maybe she’d do a straight shot.  Whatever she felt like when she started off, really. 

            “Stay in touch!” she called behind her as she walked out, waving.  They weren’t heading out until later in the day, but she had all her stuff together and… well, she was getting bored, cooped up here in the desert a whole week.  Cory was nice and all, but… kinda clingy.  She didn’t really _mind_ , exactly, but she was kinda done for now. 

            Maybe she’d head to Germany first, around Berlin.  No way was she going to stay in the Munich area, what with all the political stuff going on heavy with the princess living there, but she wanted to see just how good her German was getting. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            “Will it do?” 

            Melissa closed the window showing the laptop’s specs and stood up.  “It will,” she reassured the man.  “I’m going to need to take it with me.  Have you already gotten rid of any sensitive information on it?” 

            “As soon as you said you might need it,” he returned quickly.  “A computer, that’s nothing.  Was there anything else you think you might need?” 

            Melissa resisted the urge to sigh, instead meeting Fergusen’s eyes solidly and trying to project calm confidence.  “This should be fine.  But-”  She cut off whatever he opened his mouth to say, “I will let you know immediately if there is anything else you can do.” 

            He seemed to shrink into himself even as he nodded.  “Yes.  Yes, of course, all right.  Anything you need.  Call me at any time, _any_ time, if there’s _anything_ at all-” 

            She reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder.  “Sir,” she murmured quietly.  “Know that we _will_ , okay?  In a heartbeat.  If there’s anything at all, you’ll be the first to know.”  She doubted it was going to come to that, from the plan Duo had laid out, but it was good backup, and in any case they were words that this poor father needed to hear. 

            She was familiar with what it felt like, to find yourself helpless to save those you loved.  She imagined it must only be worse for a parent. 

            Giving his shoulder a last squeeze, she pulled back.  “You should report it stolen.  He knows what he’s doing, but caution goes a long way.  On the off chance something less than legitimate gets traced back to this machine, we don’t want it to be linked back to you, okay?” 

            His expression turned even more troubled, but he nodded resolutely.  “That… sounds sensible, yes.”  He turned pleading eyes back on her.  “Whatever it takes, I don’t care.  Please.” 

            She nodded again, and debated reaching out and patting his arm for a moment, before he moved past her to shut the machine and put it in the grocery bag she had brought with her, along with its power cord and other odds and ends.  She watched him, debating just how close he was to falling apart.  Fussing over the details seemed to be helping, so she let him, even if she could find no reason whatsoever for them to have the headset and mouse pad he tucked in the bag. 

            When he held it out for her to take, she met his eyes again.  They were harder now, determined… a good sign.  “You’re a good man,” she told him firmly.  “And a good father.” And she meant it with every fiber of her being.  She would have been willing to do this even if Duo hadn’t been because the truth was, Fergusen couldn’t afford the ransom being asked for his daughters _because_ he was an honest man.  When they had set the price, they must have done so with the assumption that all politicians embezzled.  Even with all his savings scrounged together and favors called in, he couldn’t come close to the what they were asking…  And so an honest man had had to resort to means he would never have ever contemplated, let alone condoned, just to see his little girls again. 

            His mouth hardened.  “Just get them back.”  His voice was firmer, now, and his hand didn’t shake as she took the bag from him, despite the awkward angle he had been holding it at. 

            She nodded.  “We will.”  _And I’ll make sure they never do this to anyone else again too._  

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Relena raised her brows, smiling faintly as Dorothy practically _danced_ into her lounge.  _Someone’s in a good mood._   She had worried about that.  The first day or two after she sent Jake away, the other woman had been convinced that he’d _left_ because he was upset about her leaving him behind, and that any of Relena’s arguments to the contrary were lies meant to make her feel better.  Evidently, she’d gotten over her dramatics, one way or another… and her hair had streaks of _blue_ now, instead of green. 

            She wondered if that meant anything.  Normally, she’d say it was just whimsy, but…  Well, it really might just be whimsy.  If it wasn’t she doubted she could parse out the reasoning in any case. 

            “For you,” Dorothy announced in a sing-song as she meandered over, offering her a portable data drive. 

            Relena took it with a bemused smile, debating what it _was_.  The casing on the little drive was classy, expensive in a subtle way, but there were no personally identifiable markings beyond money.  “From?” 

            “Compliments of Edmund Sunstrum,” the heiress purred.  “He appreciates my consideration of his abilities, and looks forward to working with you.” 

            …If she wasn’t fairly sure that Dorothy was above seducing young men for information, she would be worried about that statement.  The second youngest son of Marquis Vincent Sunstrum was rumored to be something of a genius when it came to electronics; it had evidently caused something of a scandal when he had asked, four years ago, if he could take up an apprenticeship position in an engineering firm in L1.  His family had rather thoroughly rebuked him for it, dismissing it as a need to sow wild oats, but the action had put him on Olivia’s list of those trying to strike out…  and if he was half as talented as they hoped, she could make good use of him. 

            She had forgotten Dorothy was going to see him today.  _Or was it yesterday?_   Either way, it was a promising start; she had sent Dorothy because outside of Jake, the heiress was the only one who had a hope of accurately evaluating him on a technical level.  “He’s good, then?” she asked curiously. 

            “A seeming natural reverse engineer,” Dorothy continued happily, moving to the desks to sift through… something.  “Self-taught.  Overlooked talent is _so_ eager to rise to the challenge if recognized.  I thought we’d recruit him before your brother thought to be possessive.”  Turning back around and leaning back against the desk, she offered her a wicked little smirk before declaring, “Among other things, there’s schematics in there breaking down the components of the earlier heat amplifiers.” 

            Relena’s breath caught.  “No,” she announced definitively.  “I need the Chinese; we’re not going to undercut them.” 

            Dorothy waved a hand lazily at her, pulling a packet of candy from somewhere behind her back and tossing a piece in her mouth.  “Of course not, and I’m fairly sure he hasn’t shown anyone else; too much resentment running in that family.  No, this is just a _proof_ , Lena.  He was raised Romefeller through and through; he knows the political impact that _doing_ it would cause.  But if he can do that from a few spare parts and broken panels the technicians tossed out…”  Her mouth widened into a smile. 

            The princess found herself smiling right back.  _Then he could do a **great** deal more elsewhere, with more information at his fingertips._   And Dorothy had just brought him to _her_.  “I love you,” she announced happily, setting the drive down on her coffee table and holding out a hand.  “Share.” 

            Her friend laughed delightedly as she _flounced_ over to the opposite couch, tipping a few gummies into Relena’s outstretched palm before dropping onto her back and stretching out.  “I also converted Count Haun to your school of thought,” she admitted, again almost purring the words out. 

            Relena frowned.  “Dana Haun?” 

            “The same,” the other blonde sighed out, closing her eyes. 

            That… was impossible.  She narrowed her eyes.  “You mean you blackmailed him.” 

            Dorothy blinked open her eyes, affecting at surprise.  “Is there a difference?” 

            Relena groaned, slouching back in her seat.  As ever with Dorothy, it was hard to tell if she _did_ understand the difference or not.  But it also wasn’t worth the effort of forcing the point, at the moment; the count in question would _never_ willingly support her, she was sure, and he had to have _done_ something bad enough to be worthy of blackmail.  “I’ll be sure to be pleasantly surprised when he talks to me again,” she announced, enunciating clearly, “because I _know nothing about the conversation you had with him_.” 

            It was Dorothy’s turn to frown.  “You don’t,” she noted.  “Because I didn’t tell you.” 

            “Precisely.” 

            The other woman rolled her eyes.  “Naturally.” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            Duo bit his lip, leaning back in his chair.  _Another dead end._   On the one hand, it was frustrating as hell and it was making his skin crawl with worry…  Angelica and Amilee Ferguson were seven years old and three, and these guys had a nasty history.  On the other, he wasn’t too worried… at least, not yet.  This was _his_ goddamn city… and the ideal place to hide in this town was in _his_ fucking sector.  It was just deep enough in the slums without being _too_ dangerous; he had kept his area pretty clean after taking out the Slingers, and the gangs he’d cultivated out of the incoming refugees were more crews than anything.  They still got some foul play, sure, but it was _nothing_ compared to the shit that went down in Shadow or Beale territory… and Cadence and Tiger ran their sectors like they were the fucking KGB – that level of scrutiny made them a damned bad place to be up to anything in. 

            No… it pissed him off, but out of all the options, he was probably considered the least trouble, especially since it’d been over a year since the Devils got into anything deep.  Even when they _had_ been neck and neck with the Slingers, it had still been pretty tame compared their neighbors.  _Hell, the way the Devils came off as good people even from the start was why **I** settled in with them._  

            No, he liked their image, overall, but he was glad that Val had brought this to him even if it _was_ scraping his damn nerves raw, because if this had slid past him…  It would have done damage to their reputation, not even getting into having those little girls on his conscience.  If he didn’t come down on these guys like the hammer of _God_ , then someone else would get ideas, before long. 

            And when he handled this like the Chaos he had introduced himself as almost two years ago – decisively, absolutely – then _no one_ would be willing to try something for a long ass time.  They _needed_ that deterrent.  The fact that it was outsiders doing this to Dutch children made it all the more important that he be far harsher than he would over an internal issue too. 

            And he certainly wouldn’t lose sleep over making _this_ example. 

            These guys…  They were professional in a way that he hadn’t seen since the war, but there was something almost _lazy_ about them too.  _Hell, I haven’t seen something like this since **I** tried to pull some major shit and vanish into thin air._   Household security had managed to ID the vehicle the kids had been taken in, but it had been reported stolen the day before, and turned up abandoned a few miles away from the house.  That was how the Militia knew about it in the first place, because after that, Fergusen had started refusing to talk to the authorities – the first of the kidnappers’ demands.  The man was aware enough of the underbelly of his city, though, to consider less noticeable assistance, and had managed to catch the attention of a Militia man who was known to be a member of the Devils. 

            Cue in how this became Duo’s problem. 

            He’d had Melissa take the father’s laptop, hoping to make some headway from the hacking angle, but despite being able to get into his cell company’s network – _Thank-you, Mr. Perfect Soldier! –_ the call giving a proof of possession on the girls was, predictably, just a burner being used from the middle of a town square.  He’d hoped that maybe they’d use the phone again, but so far, no such luck.  At this point, he wouldn’t be too surprised if they had one guy handling any communication away from where they were keeping the girls, just incase someone had the balls to skate mobile network security – something that even _he_ wouldn’t have been willing to do before watching Heero crack a few. 

            Hell if he knew why, but cell companies were about as uptight as Swiss banks; they took the idea of privacy to scary heights, at least at the core level.  He could get into the cell towers and satellites easy enough, but all that would give him is location; the numbers and actual _information_ being passed around was heavily encrypted. 

            It was one of the ways he had been able to even _get_ orders during the war, and he’d always thought it was awesome, seeing as OZ wasn’t too big on cell phones…  but yeah, the Regime, unlike the Alliance, had a damn fine foothold in those companies.  Apparently someone had recognized that particular hole.  _I bet Zechs used it at least once._   And anyway, he’d just gotten in, so maybe it wasn’t as badass as he’d thought… 

            …and he was going off on a tangent.  Groaning, closed his eyes and tipped his head back, trying to think. 

            He was positive that they were in his part of the city; he had been since Val had first given him the lowdown on how these guys ran their ops.  They’d given Fergusen four days to pull together the funds, and said they’d call him again with a fresh proof of life and a drop location.  _Cash is king, evidently._   Their M.O. at that point was to call a handful of hours after picking up the loot to give a location on the kidnappee.  They always did that, even in the instances where they’d left a corpse.  He supposed that at least they were consistent. 

            He could work with consistent.  _Predictable._  

            The van was a typical dead end, but they had to have switched out for a different car at that point, and he had no way of telling if it had been another steal or not.  Just the same, he had everyone in his network watching out for different autos; there were few enough that came through that everyone knew the regulars.  With what he’d seen so far, he doubted they were stupid enough to bring something too noticeable into the clichey area that slums around the world made, but it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye out – you never knew what someone else thought was dumb.  These guys were outsiders, but there hadn’t been any real waves in the community for a couple weeks… which suggested set-up.  Someone had come in within the last three months and settled in and arranged everything they would need, so that the rest could come into town and just melt into the shadows with none the wiser. 

            They would have needed supplies, though; they’d just burgled the damn _mayor’s_ children out of his house, and his security, while not the best in the world, hadn’t been a pushover.  While Melissa had been talking to the guy and getting his computer, Duo’d been checking out the security footage, the damage… and from there, he knew there were only a handful of people they could have gotten their supplies from in all of the Netherlands.  And they would have wanted to get it at least within the country, to avoid the border patrols – it was worth the price to let the black market handle the risks for you, generally speaking. 

            And Kasey von Koll was in pretty tight with the local black market; in all honesty, half his local networking was steeped in it.  It wasn’t like they only dealt in guns and drugs, after all.  Hell, he was one of their favorite people, anymore; he’d practically _custom made_ a front-end shop for their business.  It wasn’t like he cared if people wanted bombs or drugs; he’d certainly picked up enough weapons to make people nervous, and if someone wanted to blow their brains on a high, that was their problem.  If they decided to _make_ it his problem somehow, he’d handle it; people had the right to take care of their own shit how they wanted. 

            Either way, he took care of his people and everyone knew it, so it hadn’t taken much to get them to talk to him.  Maybe it would have been an issue if he hadn’t been asking after outsiders, but he probably would’ve only had to grease some wheels even if that hadn’t been the case.  Only two orders had come through that would have covered their needs within the past six weeks; before that, nothing that would have matched up for a good four months, which was just outside of any practical timeline, at least for a repeat offender.  

            They had made a system of this: a total of twelve reported jobs since they first cropped up five years ago.  They were efficient enough about everything else…  They had definitely gotten it to the point that they didn’t need to waste time. 

            Whoever had come first would have avoided making attachments; easier to disappear later, that way.  In most places, that would work, but here… in Devils’ territory, that would probably be remembered, if not fussed about.  If he could find any instances of that in his timeline of the past two months, he should be able to sketch out a rough search radius. 

            So for now… he had to sit here and wait to hear back from anyone, which felt worthless, but really, he _knew_ better. 

-

***

-

**August 26 th 198 – Tuesday – Berlin, Germany**

            Really, she should have expected it.  At the same time though…  Traveling was _so_ much more boring without Odin. 

            It wasn’t that she couldn’t take care of herself or anything.  It was just…  he’d _know_ stuff about the area, and he’d show her, and it’s be really _cool_ even though if someone else was talking about it, it’d be totally lame. 

            _…Wow._   Marlé sighed and flipped out her phone, considering the time.  She was, like… homesick.  Grimacing, she tucked her phone back in her pocket and sat back on the park bench.  Just thinking about her mom made her stomach start churning…  And she didn’t want to get it over with right now because she’d be totally mad about her running around on her own like this too.  She hadn’t ever _told_ her mom when she’d done it the first time, and it wasn’t like Odin would have brought it up with her.  So when she _did_ talk to her mom again, she needed to do it when Odin was nearby, even if he said she had to handle it by herself.  Just so she could, maybe…  Spread the news out a bit.  It wasn’t like she was doing anything _wrong_ , but her mom wasn’t going to _get_ that. 

            Groaning, she pulled her phone back out and tapped out a message to her pseudo brother. 

            _‘i miss you’_  

            She tucked her feet up under her while she waited for a response, trying to figure out what she even _wanted_ him to say back.  When her grandfather had first taken her away, she had wanted Meagan more than anything…  Then once she had taken up with Odin, the one thing she wanted more than anything was her mom.  She’d dreamed about how she’d find her again, what she’d say, and all the ways she might’ve responded…  And then none of it had happened out like she’d ever imagined. 

            Now, though… it felt like she couldn’t do _anything_ without Odin around, like, five times worse than it had been about her mom.  And worse, it was a _lie_ ; she could do _so_ much more on her own than she could have even dreamed of before she met Odin, but… 

            …It just wasn’t _fun_ by herself. 

            Huffing out a breath, she dropped her head in her hands, starting to feel embarrassed.  Really, what was she expecting?  What was he supposed to even _do_?  He and Lucrezia were up in space by now, doing important stuff.  They had too much on their plate to work with for her to bother him about feeling _lonely_ when she was perfectly fine otherwise, especially when she was feeling so crummy about it because she wouldn’t _call her mom_. 

            _Maybe I could catch a flight up to them,_ she wondered forlornly, before waving the idea off.  They weren’t taking public routes, and she didn’t know even _close_ to enough about the back ways to handle it on her own. 

            No, she was acting like a little kid.  _Come on, get over it,_ she urged herself, not looking up.  _He’s probably not even going to **get** that text for another hour or more.  Just… go find something fun to do._   There had to be a bookstore she could get lost in for a while, right?  Or, like, even just get lost trying to _find_ a good bookstore- 

            **_“I see you.”_   **

            She half scrambled to get her phone back out, and blinked at the message before smiling so wide her face hurt.  That was the thing, with Odin; however weird he could get, deep down, he always knew just what you needed. 

            _‘Do you want me to head back?’_  

            That… made her feel a whole world better, just knowing that he _would_ drop whatever he was doing if she asked.  He’d made it clear before that he would, but…  well, she’d never asked him to. 

            And, she decided with a swell of pride, she wasn’t about to start, not if she didn’t _need_ him. 

            _‘well, just…  how long do you need to finish up?  i mean, whatever’s fine, it just isn’t the same, you know?’_   She thought for a moment longer, before adding, _‘i’ll just go hang out in Amsterdam again for now’._   Amos was more fun than Cory, to be sure…  and she knew the city well enough by now to make herself comfortable if he was busy. 

            Having a plan made it all easy, again. 

            _‘Alright.  I’ll see you Thursday.’_  

            Marlé grinned to herself at that…  and flipped back through her past calls for Amos’ number. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Thank-you so much for seeing me,” the blonde woman murmured cheerfully as she took a seat and crossed her legs, looking around the atrium office in delight.  “And I _must_ say that you have good taste.” 

            Relena smiled in response, shaking her head.  “As much as I would like to claim it was my idea, it was actually sprung on me by my… assistant, after he’d made the arrangements.”  She shook her head slightly, tossing her hair more than anything.  “As much as I’m enjoying it, the credit goes to him.” 

            _Assistant._   Mailin repressed a snicker.  For all that it was true on a handful of levels…  _He makes **some** assistant._  

            Their guest, Delilah Osborne, had a light in her eyes that suggested that her thoughts weren’t so far from Mai’s own.  “Well, then you must have excellent taste in your people,” she decided.  “The last assistant I had of that caliber, I married.”  Before Relena had a chance to blush, however, she was continuing on.  “In any case, I hadn’t expected something so beautiful when you invited me into your home.  Though, of course,” she smiled and offered her a saucy wink.  “Only the best for the best, hm?” 

            The princess only sighed.  “I suspect Jake might have had something like that in mind,” she admitted carelessly.  “It’s a lovely home, and I’m glad for it, but it’s hardly of any real concern.”  She met her eyes pointedly.  “If it would have furthered my interests, I might have chosen a studio apartment.” 

            Delilah only looked more pleased at the announcement, eying the younger woman critically as she nodded.  “Yes, I’m sure you would…”  Glancing around the room again, a smirk touched her lips.  “This room here would make an _excellent_ studio, if you don’t mind my saying so, however.”  Relena laughed, and her guest shook her head slightly.  “In any case… yes, I can see that it’s a bonus, not a need.  I certainly don’t _need_ my townhouse in Nice, but it certainly _does_ sweeten the pot, as it were.”  Her smile was gentle, and genuine.  “In this world where so many are impoverished, I don’t take my blessings for granted, but neither do I scorn what I receive; I’ve found it best to recognize my good fortune, and do what I can to spread it.” 

            _Nice speech._   The French woman had successfully broken the ice with the princess, setting up a warm, joking environment, while testing the waters and establishing herself as a spiritual kinsman to her host.  It was… verging on artful.  _Dangerous._   Well, possibly, at any rate.  It wasn’t as though she were trying to camouflage herself; everything about the woman was delicately designed to show the self-made entrepreneur as she was, from her flowing summer dress, whimsical shoes, and make-up perfectly painted to accent her heart-shaped face and pale blue eyes, to her platinum blonde waves hanging to the middle of her back just _too_ perfectly to have been carelessly styled.  With her wedding band on her left hand and a thick golden bangle encircling her right bicep, she was a poster image of new money finery – the kind of woman that made Romefeller nervous.  _Practical, gorgeous, and every bit as proud, without any of the tradition._   In all too many ways, she was a model for what Relena herself was attempting to craft of herself, except Relena _had_ the old money at her back.  She was the image of modern, feminine power, even if she was only the creator of a foundation to reunite war-torn families. 

            In any case, Delilah Osborne was _absolutely_ the most feminine dyke Mailin had ever met.  Having met Helena Osborne the other day – who could pass herself off as a Greek _goddess_ – she had expected someone more… butch.  _Shows what I know_ , she couldn’t help but think in amusement.  _If you’ve written off men, after all, why not?_  

            “I couldn’t agree more,” Relena declared.  “Though when I heard a previous RLTT candidate was requesting an audience, I suspected we might have at least a few things in common.” 

            Delilah’s laugh was downright musical, in a way that almost made Mai want to frown in jealousy.  Not really, though – she did sexy dangerous _far_ better than pretty, and she’d always liked it that way.  Just… _damn_ , that was all.  It almost made her think about the fairer sex herself…

            …Well, no not really.  Men were far too much _fun_ to give it any real thought. 

            “The Tomorrow Today Fund was what really got me off the ground,” Delilah noted.  “Before that, I was just a girl with an idea, but without the confidence to bring it into the world.” 

            Lin shifted slightly from his place near the door, behind the women, and Mai met his eyes for a moment, catching the thought.  She’d heard enough from Lin, Jake, Dorothy, even Relena herself, to realize that the young woman she was guarding had been much the same. 

            _So, a lie to endear herself, or does RLTT have a type?_   More likely the latter, in her opinion.  They had done their research; by all accounts they could find, Osborne as the woman she had become started as a fifteen-year-old orphan who decided she had something to prove, working as a waitress in Paris and sharing a tiny flat with three other people to keep from dipping into a life insurance allotment she had inherited…  Because she had wanted to do something _important_ with it, she’d said. 

            Most teenage girls thought having a decent standard of living was _important_.  But not Delilah… and if their positions had been reversed, she thought maybe Relena would be the same. 

            And _Delilah_ could see it too. 

            “Do you know how you caught RLTT’s attention?” Relena asked.  “With me, the invitation came directly after my success in China, but-” 

            “But I had never been on television,” Delilah finished easily.  “No… to be honest, I still have no idea on exactly how, but I wasn’t exactly quiet about my scorn for what the Alliance’s actions had been known to do to people, especially families.  I first thought I had found what I wanted to do when Sanc fell.”  She pursed her lips.  “It was hardly the first time something like that happened, but it was something of a catalyst for a lot of people.”  Shaking her head, she continued.  “Then, it was as if the floodgates blew open; supposed uprisings in the colonies that the Alliance wanted to put down…  People who spoke out too strongly went missing, very suddenly.  There was so much propaganda flying around that you couldn’t believe anything anyone said.”  A wry smile twisted her mouth.  “And I had been on my own for a whole three years by then, so obviously I knew what needed to be done, right?  I wanted it to be solid, though…”  She sighed.  “I took my time planning it out, which was really saying something, considering how little free time I had, and before I knew it, another two years had gone by.” 

            Her mouth tightened.  “I was sick of waiting, so I just threw myself into it, and, well…  The response was rather lackluster.  For all that I could tell that half of what I had been told about the world was propaganda, at first what I thought I needed was to have none myself, and people would see the truth; but you have to be seen in the first place, to get someone’s attention.  Then, when I got off my high horse and tried to focus more on getting my name _out_ there, I found that I was altogether _bad_ at advertisement.”  She shook her head again.  “In the process, I blew the lion share of my money.  In the end, I found myself running something almost entirely local to northern France in my free time while I stayed in the restaurant business, with little more attention put out from it than a phonebook listing.  I wasn’t willing to give it up, but…”  She shook her head.  “I couldn’t bring it into reality on my own. 

            “I focused on missing persons reports, though; I couldn’t work out how to get people to come to _me_ , but every chance I had, I worked on it.  I knew where all the refugees tried to hide in Paris by the time I was twenty-one, and I ran interviews, getting as much information as I could, then cross-referencing it against every bit of information I could find in my little sham of an office, trying to find connections.”  Tapping at her lips with one finger, she admitted, “I had the most success with the children, though I never worked out if that was because someone was looking harder to find them than they might an adult, or because children have a way of telling the truth that adults just can’t see…  And since RLTT’s proposal first came when I was twenty-six, specifically offering funding and structure for a program focused on children, I suppose something I did on those cases was what caught their attention.  After that… Well, things just grew.  I’d learned from my mistakes… and whoever runs the Fund has more influence than I would have imagined.  I was a candidate for nearly two years before RLTT moved on, and by then I was self-sufficient; and now I am able to take the program everywhere I had ever dreamed.” 

            Considering the fact that the Osborne Reunion Foundation had been _the_ organization people went to when trying to find missing persons since 194, she wasn’t boasting.  They certainly didn’t find everyone, especially considering the sheer chaos that had followed the Fall at the end of 195, but they had the best success rates – nearly double what any other organization could claim.  _Of course, that is in part because they take on more clients._   If you fell below a certain income bracket, there was no charge… and certainly, they worked for less than most companies trying the same gig, and _tried_ five times harder than the government, even while it relied on a strong network of volunteers as much as its stable employees.  For the most part, Delilah’s organization stayed afloat on a mixture of donations and passive income from good investments. 

            “That’s a fantastic inspiration,” Relena announced. 

            Delilah’s grin was infectious, and she leaned back in her seat, practically beaming with pride.  “Success stories generally are, as a rule.”  Pursing her lips, she added, “One of the reasons I asked to see you, however, was that hoping for your opinion on a proposition.  I’ve been debating if I should propose it directly to the government or run through the private sector.” 

            “Oh?” 

            She was eying the princess carefully, now.  “I firmly believe that the majority of the men in Cambyses were victims of circumstance.” 

            _Ooh, way to get to the heart of the matter.  Bold._   Not that Mailin had expected anything _but_ bold, but it looked as though their guest didn’t like to beat around the bush. 

            Thankfully, neither did the princess.  “I am of the same opinion,” Relena agreed smoothly.  “There are exceptions, of course, but I also believe that even in those cases, their families deserve to know what happened.”  She turned steely eyes on the older woman.  “The truth is not always pretty, but it is still what everyone deserves.” 

            Osborne looked smugly impressed.  “So if I were to offer my services directly to the government for the Cambyses survivors…?” 

            Relena pursed her lips… then, to Mailin’s surprise, shook her head.  “The international nature of it would give me some amount of influence over it, but in truth, there would be so many varying opinions that I cannot guarantee you a favorable result.  It was difficult enough to establish amnesty for those who fought alongside the Strike Force, and the fate of those who surrendered has been circling through debates since before the strike even began.” 

            Delilah blinked languidly.  “I see.” 

            “However,” she continued, “This is something I would be honored to support myself.  If nothing else, I would do so alongside a few other interested parties, but if I obtain approval through RLTT, then I would like to handle the entirety of the associated financial burden.” 

            The older woman only smirked, idly fingering the bangle on her arm.  “And Rhea Lowe, whoever she is, does already favor me.” 

            “Indeed,” Relena agreed, looking faintly amused… then pausing. 

            Her newfound friend frowned.  “What?” 

            Relena frowned too, shaking her head.   “I’m sorry, I was just surprised…  Can I see that for a moment?” 

            Delilah shrugged when the princess gestured at her jewelry, and deftly pried it off with a proud smile.  “Ah, of course.  It was a gift, when RLTT was preparing to withdraw from the Foundation.  One of my favorite pieces.” 

            “It’s lovely,” Mai offered, moving to stand closer to her charge as she took the bracelet.  She was right in guessing it as a heavy yellow gold, and hammered, with a purposeful ripple to its surface, giving it a natural look.  What she had missed before, however, was an inlay of rose gold in its surface, in the pattern of a bird.  _I’ve seen that design before._   Where was escaping her, but it was pretty enough; all stylistic, flowing lines. 

            “The best part is on the inside,” the blonde woman insisted with an indulgent smile, but Mai noticed that Relena had already begun turning it over to look before Delilah said anything. 

            _‘The best way to predict the future is to make it. – Alan Kay’_  

            Relena was just staring blankly at it.  “Lena?” Mai whispered in concern.  It was just a piece of jewelry. 

            The princess seemed to shake herself out of her funk and offered Osborne a bright smile as she handed it back.  “Thank-you.  I just… well.”  Shaking her head a little, she reached behind her head and unclasped her necklace before handing it to the other woman as well.  “Look.” 

            Mai resisted the urge to flinch.  _Willfully_.  Not that she expected any real danger from the woman in the office with them, but she had never seen that necklace off of the princess’ neck, and for good reason: it was a locator beacon, and while Jake was gone, he had left _her_ in charge of the tracking algorithm.  It was obviously _fine_ to show it off for once, but why the hell- 

            “They’re identical,” Delilah murmured appreciatively.  “Well, mine’s not so utilitarian, but…”  She offered them a wry smile.  “I _have_ always loved to showboat a bit.  It suits you.”  She carefully handed the necklace back before putting her bracelet back around her arm.  “And I must say that RLTT has taken a greater shine to you than me; I didn’t get mine until almost twenty months after I had been a candidate.  You really must have impressed them.” 

            Relena looked distant as she refastened the clasp and tucked the pendant back under her shirt.  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but…  Have you met any other candidates before me?” 

            “No.  They never caught my interest, to be honest; before now, we’ve been in separate enough fields of interest that I hadn’t tried.  Why?” 

            “Oh, I was just wondering if any of the others had something of the like,” she returned dismissively.  “It had never occurred to me before, that it might be a specific design.” 

            “Me either,” Delilah admitted.  “Though it would make sense, for it to be trademark.” 

            “It does echo the Fund’s ideals rather eloquently, doesn’t it?” Relena returned, standing.  “Well, it’s been a pleasure having you over, but I’m afraid time flies no matter what I do to try and slow things down.” 

            “It has a way of getting away from you,” the older woman agreed, standing herself.  “Do let me know when you hear back from RLTT.  Or would you like me to write up an official proposal for you to forward first?” 

            Relena shook her head.  “I’ll mention it in a note today, and see what they say first.  Whether or not they’re interested, I’ll be in touch within the next few days to iron out the details.” 

            “Excellent.  I look forward to speaking with you again.” 

            “And I as well.” 

            As soon as the sound of the nightingale floors faded behind Osborne and Lincoln, the princess fished her necklace back out and focused those intensely blue eyes of hers on Mai.  “Jake had this necklace made for me.” 

            “I know.”  And she could see for herself that the design was _exactly_ the same. 

-

***

-

**August 27 th 198 – Wednesday – Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            Amos shifted his backpack as he left the building, debating what he could get up to that afternoon.  For once, he had no homework, and while normally that would mean he went straight to the shop, he wasn’t entirely sure what Kay and ‘Liss were up to right now; if they’d want him to make himself scarce.  Though really, he supposed if they _were_ hunting down any clues, that would mean they’d appreciate it if he’d keep shop hours for them…  But he couldn’t remember if there were any jobs that they would trust him to work on without one or the other over his shoulder, right now.  Rina was off today, so he wasn’t on baby duty at least- 

            “Hey, is that your girlfriend?” 

            The orphan scowled and smacked hard at his friend, who snickered while he mostly dodged – enough that Amos only brushed him, at least.  Rolling his eyes, he focused over towards the gate, about to ask _why_ Nolan thought the his friend would show up here of all places… 

            And that _was_ Marlé. 

            Frowning, he picked up his pace, hurrying over to the girl.  She was young enough that he doubted it was a problem, but this was _not_ the week for strangers to wander the Devils’ quarter.  “Hey.” 

            She tucked her phone away and smiled brightly at him.  “Hi.  I was bored and in the area, so I thought I’d see if you were busy.”  Tilting her head a little – he suddenly realized he was still frowning, she added, “If you are, I can get lost.  My brother’s just touring around space with his new girlfriend and I’m bored.” 

            “No!” he protested quickly.  “No, it’s good.  I don’t even have any homework today.”  He really _wasn’t_ busy, first of all… 

            …and with Kasey on the warpath, this was literally the _worst_ time for a foreigner to meander the streets in search of random entertainment, like he suspected Marlé _would_ if he turned her down.  “How long are you staying?” 

            She smiled brilliantly and reached down to pick up her duffel, slinging it over one shoulder.  “Odin said he’d be here sometime tomorrow, so just a day or so.  I haven’t checked into a hostel yet; I thought I’d ask your boss or his wife which ones they thought were good.”  She patted her bag.  “I took the laptop before he ran off, though, so I can show you some of that programming I was telling you about.” 

            That actually sounded _really_ fun.  Kasey had been letting him watch as he tinkered and hacked yesterday, but he just went too fast for Amos to really follow.  “Okay.”  He really didn’t want her walking alone right now, though; it was a wonder nothing had happened to her on the way _here_.  The fact that she was obviously a girl was probably the only reason why.  And if he tried to insist that she let him walk her back to her room and then back again, she’d probably just laugh in his face and do whatever she wanted. 

            Maybe if he asked Melissa as soon as he saw her, she’d let him set her up above the shop for the night…  stay up all night doing stuff, and play hooky tomorrow.  Normally he wouldn’t ask, but…  he couldn’t just tell the blonde girl that his hero was having a throw down with some thugs and ask her to never be alone.  She was from too much money to _get_ it, and too independent to listen to him, even though he was older.  He’d have to check it in with Melissa as soon as he got in, anyhow, but as it was…  time for the small talk stuff he’d been getting better at. 

            “How was your trip?” 

            “Pretty good,” she announced cheerfully, smiling at Nolan as he rejoined them and they headed for the shop.  “Ran into this asshole a couple blocks over from here, but I handled it.”  Her grin probably should have been more predatory than picturesque… but it really _wasn’t_.  “He was really hopeless with that knife of his.”  She shook her head.  “I don’t remember the neighborhood being _this_ rough, but do you think I’d really get in trouble if I started walking up high again?  Most people don’t really look up.” 

            On second thought, this might not be what most people thought was small talk. 

-

***

-

            “Terrell said he sold him doses for a _kid_ ’s weight, von Koll,” Adrian muttered defensively.  “It’s tasteless with girls, but kids?  The boys might have overdone it a bit, but I’m not punishing anyone over it.” 

            Duo nodded absently even as he tried not to sigh in frustration, and toed the corpse.  ‘Overdone it’ was a bit of an understatement, but if he’d had less of the facts than he did, he couldn’t really say he would have done differently.  Well, no, he _liked_ to think he’d have been smart enough to follow the big man back to wherever he was staying, to _find the damn **kid**_ , but truthfully, this kind of purchase was generally made before a grab, not after. 

            So the question was, was this guy one of the people who nabbed Fergusen’s daughters, or some unrelated scumbag?  He’d snapped a picture of his face already and was intending to see if anyone knew who the hell he was…  But that kind of result probably wouldn’t come back as fast as he needed, especially if he _was_ involved.  But if he _was_ one of these guys… 

            They had been so clear-cut, professional.  They should have already had any drugs they needed the keep the girls quiet – with this shit, knocked out cold.  If this _was_ his guy…  something had gone wrong, and they were compensating. 

            _So, what could make them need more of the drug?_  

            It getting lost or destroyed was extremely doubtful, with this caliber of agent, but not impossible.  Shit happened when you least expected it.  But it was more likely that for some reason, they had needed more than originally expected.  So why?  His first guess would normally either be tolerance or some other physical factor, but if it had been him planning for something like this, he would have had more than enough for that kind of discrepancy, so long as he wasn’t dealing with someone freakishly Heero-like.  Not to mention that Fergusen’s girls were petite little things, and they sure as hell had never been exposed to the class of drug being used.  _So…_  

            They had needed more, unexpectedly.  It sure as hell wasn’t a safe thing to be on for more than a couple hours at a go, and any past victims whose parents had coaxed them into telling the cops their details – police records security was such a damn joke, really – had reported that they were blindfolded and sometimes gagged for most of their time under the knife.  They usually only drugged in spurts, for transport or before they were left to be found at the end of a job. 

            So for some reason, if he was on the right track with this guy being involved, then they’d had to break that pattern.  Which they never had before.  Which meant that something had gone wrong with their plan on how to keep the girls isolated… 

            _Hm._   He might be pissing in the wind here, but his gut said this was related, and he’d lost count of how many times listening to his gut had saved him.  If he was right…  then for some reason, they’d had to abandon their original hidey-hole and go with a subpar option, one where the sound of struggling little girls might reach sensitive ears.  Drugging them constantly over a few days sure as hell wouldn’t be good for them, but it wouldn’t be enough to kill the kids either; necessary evil, if you had, say, planned for an abandoned building, then had to revert to a motel or apartment.  _And you’d need something like double or triple the amount of meds to pull it off…_   Depending on how conservative they’d been on their first purchase, at least. 

            He tilted his head, considering the dead man.  He’d been downright _stupid_ , checking the dose with his buyer.  He must not be the one who normally calculated that shit out, because that was _not_ information you shared when you did something so heinous.  Terrell wouldn’t have thought twice about selling the shit if it looked like a typical date rape plan, scummy as that was – it was part of his business, end of story.  But doses for, say, a three-year-old?  He’d been more than happy to sell, take the fucker’s money, then immediately turn around and tell all the local boys what the outsider was up to with a damn fine description of him.  Guy hadn’t made it three blocks before getting ambushed, and when he’d fought back decently, Adrian’s boys hadn’t bothered holding back at all.  Shit, by the time Terrell had gotten on the phone to call _him_ about it, the guy might’ve already been bleeding out. 

            He crouched down beside the body and started rifling through his clothes.  “Your boys already go through his stuff?” 

            Adrian shook his head and spit.  “Nah, Terrell was out here almost as soon as it was done, saying you were on the way over.  I don’t get why you’re so interested, though.” 

            Duo shook his head, checking the pants pockets.  “Got some kid snatchers I’m looking for.  Seemed like it might be a half decent lead.”  Pulling out his wallet, he flipped it open and considered the ID.  If it was fake, it was at least as well done as his own… but he bet it was a fake.  He slipped the card out and tucked it in his pocket, making sure that Adrian could see what he was doing, and grabbed the two pieces of plastic in there two – he didn’t think he’d get anything tracking the cards, but it might be worth a shot.  Nobody wanted the plastic out of a dead man’s wallet anyhow – him taking it was no loss to the local boys.  There was a good amount of cash too…  And he shook his head before tucking it back in and tossing the leather – real fucking _leather_ , in a place like this, this probably _was_ his guy – at the crew leader.  “There’s a decent bounty in there to split between your good Samaritans,” he offered easily.  “His rings and chain might be worth pawning too.” 

            Adrian grinned.  “Cool.”  Tossing his prize up in the air and catching it a few times, he frowned.  “Kidnappers, huh?” 

            “Two little girls,” he agreed, dropping a lighter, smokes, some coins, and a key on the ground next to him before tugging on the guy’s coat so he could snake a hand into its side pocket.  “If this is one of them, then they’re keeping them close enough to here to walk it, probably.”  He froze as his hand wrapped around something familiar, and grinned as he pulled out a phone.  Cheap, with no call history, but one number saved in contacts. 

            _Unused burner._   He whistled lowly, looking back at the dead man and shaking his head.  He _had_ to just be the muscle; he didn’t know the math for dosages, _and_ he couldn’t even memorize the damn number?  That was just _sloppy_.  He tucked it into his own coat pocket and quickly finished his search, but didn’t find anything else besides the drugs.  Not that it mattered much.  The phone by _itself_ was a hell of a goldmine. 

            “All yours,” he muttered, standing up.  “Sorry to hold things up.” 

            Adrian waved it off, tilting his head and grinning.  “You think you got ‘em?” 

            Duo just grinned even broader and waved before sauntering off to the sound of the crew leader’s laughter.  The faster he got back to the shop, the faster he could track the rest of these fuckers down. 

-

***

-

**Space**

            “Sir?” 

            Milliardo looked up from the report he was reading, forcing himself not to squint as his eyes refocused.  “Yes?” 

            “Benay found something he thought you should see, immediately,” the private continued, moving forward and offering him a folder.  It was sealed, and marked with a stamp that marked it for his eyes only.  _How interesting_.  “Thank-you,” he murmured, trying to remember exactly what he had assigned Benay to researching…  Or was this an entirely random find?  He broke the seal as the private showed himself out, and stared at the picture on top, disbelieving. 

            This… could turn the tables in his favor.  Quickly, he set aside the picture and flipped through the accompanying information, running odds and scenarios.  He’d need to move quickly, but…  He firmed his lips and stood, sweeping the papers back together and moving to the door, heading to the navigation deck.  It was time to change course. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            Duo frowned as he came in the door, turning to Melissa for an explanation.  His wife just offered him a grin and bemused shrug in answer, and he huffed out a breath. 

            There was talking coming from upstairs.  A lot of it from a female voice he was getting resigned to seeing more often.  M-something. 

            “I thought you said she wasn’t going to stick around,” he muttered under his breath.  Though with how animated their conversation sounded, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have heard him if he spoke at a regular volume.  He was frankly at a loss as to where the hell the girl even _came_ from half the time, and he had yet to actually _see_ her properly. 

            “The clue in for that would have been back when she bought him a phone,” Melissa returned in the same quiet tone.  Suppressing a snicker, she added, “Or maybe after the third visit.” 

            “How many times _has_ she visited?” 

            “Not sure, but I think this makes five.” 

            That sounded about right.  “And he only met her two months ago.” 

            Melissa half swallowed another smile as she nodded again meaningfully. 

            He just sighed again.  Right then, now was as good a time as any, and he’d left the computer upstairs anyhow.  “Okay.  Right.  Any advice?” 

            She clicked her tongue at him in something just shy of exasperation.  “You’re busy,” she reminded him.  “And she’s twelve.  Just don’t be an idiot.” 

            Great.  Classic womanly advice, right there.  Absolutely _no way_ he could go wrong with _that_ , right? 

            He clucked his tongue right back at her with an annoyed expression to make her giggle and raced upstairs.  “Knock-knock,” he announced as he reached the landing.  “My laptop up here?”  He’d been planning on tracking the phone and cards from up here, but there went that idea. 

            Unless he could kick them out for a couple hours.  There was still some daylight left; he could make them go do something. 

            “Oh, yeah!” Amos agreed quickly, turning to him with a grin, then immediately starting to get flustered.  “Oh, you need us out?” 

            Good kid, Amos.  “Just for a little bit,” he agreed apologetically.  “Maybe an hour or so, so if you haven’t eaten yet, that could work.” 

            “Food sounds good,” the girl agreed, unfolding herself into a standing position with _just_ enough grace to set off alarm bells. 

            _She walks on top of walls,_ he reprimanded himself immediately.  _You already knew her balance was good, calm the fuck down._   He was just too high strung from all this kidnapping bullshit.  Bringing up an easy smile, he offered a hand to shake.  “I always seem to see this or that sign of you, but we’ve never actually talked,” he noted.  “I’m Kasey.” 

            Her smile was bright.  Her eyes were a very pale blue, but she had a tan that no colony girl could ever boast; spent a lot of time outdoors, then, and he already knew she’d been on Earth for a while, wherever she was originally from.  _And travels a lot on whim, hence how she ended up **here** so often._   “I’m Marlé,” she introduced.  “It’s a pleasure; it does seem odd that it’s taken this long to actually meet, huh?” 

            _Huh._   He actually hadn’t heard someone tell him it was a pleasure to meet him since Quatre.  _Well, rich colonial kids, right?_   Probably went to all the same little prep schools for manners.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “Sorry about this, just have some stuff to get done before the workday finishes up.” 

            “Of course,” she returned happily.  “I need to check in at a hostel somewhere too, and it’s better to get that over with before sundown.” 

            “About that,” Amos cut in quickly.  “Can I skip school tomorrow?  She’s only here a day, and she was going to show me how to get root access on a smartphone.” 

            His brain derailed for a second at that.  “Show you _what_?” 

            “It’s not that hard,” Marlé added.  “Really useful, too.  The tricky part is writing the code to make it so it’s easy for you, but not anyone else to pull off on your machine.” 

            …He had literally nowhere to go with that.  “Ask Melissa.”  Had Quatre known this stuff?  _Probably._   He’d built Wing Zero, after all, and he’d definitely been better with computers than Duo.  In any case, he was the last person to judge someone about truancy habits – the last time he’d gone to school that was actually _school_ and not an infiltration mission, he’d been, like, eight.  He waved a hand at them.  “So, give me an hour, I need to get some work done.  ‘Liss is downstairs.  See you later.” 

            “Later,” the girl chirped cheerfully, bouncing down the stairs and leaving Amos to follow her. 

            Duo raised a brow at him, and he swallowed hard, before a stream of Dutch rushed out of him.  _“If I leave her alone she’ll just **wander** , and that seemed like a bad idea!”_ 

            Kid had a point.  Also good to know that Marlé couldn’t speak Dutch.  _“Tell Melissa,”_ he repeated in the same language.  With that thought in mind he doubted she’d tell him no, but still, the ball was in her court.  _“Try to make it more like an hour and a half, and I’ll be gone by the time you’re back.”_  

            _“Can she sleep here?”_

            _“ **Ask Melissa** ,”_ he repeated, exasperated.  _“Now seriously, get out, I’ve got shit to do.”_  

-

***

-

**Cairo, Egypt**

            It was done.  It was finally _done_. 

            _Thank God._  

            David rolled his shoulders as he allowed himself to believe it, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted off them.  Logically, he’d known before this moment, but… well, he hadn’t exactly had the best track record for that kind of thing lately.  Until just now, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

            But, at long last, Cambyses was finished.  They’d scoured every foot of desert the group had ever even been rumored to inhabit, and had been coming up clean for over two weeks.  Realistically there would still be a few stragglers, but they could be handled by a smaller force if they tried to pop back up.  Nothing in life was ever a guarantee, after all; you just had to do your best and be prepared to manage any mistakes you made along the way. 

            Grimacing, he considered his arm.  It was fully healed, he thought; he hadn’t had any signature bone-deep pain in it for a couple of days no matter how he strained it, but he was having a hard time convincing himself that that was done with too.  Of course, that could probably be put down to the fact that his friend was still a ways from fixing himself, but he’d done what he could on that front too…  time to move on, right? 

            He sighed.  In any case, it was time to figure out his next top priority.  He didn’t have enough information on the bombers to track them despite the media splash they’d been taking lately, and frankly, their casualty list was nowhere near as high as some of the others.  _At least, not yet._   There were at least three possible rebel cells apart from Po’s people with MS that had started popping up since Heavyarms reappearance, but unless he stumbled across a hell of an opportunity, he was inclined to just hand over any information on them to the main army.  It was best to handle MS with MS, after all.  That might change with the way everything was getting more and more tied up in space, but for now…  _Not my business._  

            The core goals of the Strike Force he was leading involved breaking up the anarchist groups that had been forming up, but after Cambyses, his people could do with a little less hot of a target; he was trying to _not_ burn them out.  Something a little more sane or mundane was probably best… and there was plenty of good old “people suck” problems that Relena could use a hand with in northeastern Europe.  If they were forming up their own justice set and ignoring the administration, they technically fell under his purview, and the third world mobsters that had developed in that area needed to be handled. 

            So tonight, he’d sit back and relax a little, celebrate with his people over a nightmare’s end.  Tomorrow, they could keep going with that a bit while he sorted out details; he didn’t care to go in blind. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            James looked up as Natalie stormed in, scanning the room like she could scour the grime off the walls with her eyes alone, before slumping.  “Shit.” 

            He frowned, setting down his book and about to ask what was wrong, before it clicked that he hadn’t seen Anton in too long.  He felt his own stomach sink as anxiety rose up.  “He’s not back?” 

            His lover sighed.  “Unless he’s figured out how to turn invisible, yeah.”  She scrubbed a hand through her hair, leaning back against the doorframe.  “We’re gonna have to call Ry.” 

            James grimaced.  “Well, not until morning.”  If they were going to make a call, it would need to be from a ways away from here, and it was almost dark.  The two of them had been accepted into the local neighborhood, but he was _not_ going out at night, especially if something _had_ happened to Anton. 

            Hopefully he’d, like, seen a bar and lost track of time, and/or gotten chatted up by a hot prostitute – it had happened before, though not while on a job – or just been too drunk to remember where the apartment was. 

            He’d never done that kind of thing while working before, but it was within a reasonable range of escalation, especially when things had been so frustrating.  That frustration was the main reason James hadn’t put up too big of a fuss about Anton being the one to go out for supplies; getting him out of their little cracker box of an apartment for a couple hours would help them _all_ retain some measure of sanity.  Besides, he didn’t care for the dealer to recognize him, now that he was an established community member; enough shit had gone wrong already, it really didn’t need to be played with. 

            “He’s probably just blowing off some steam,” he added when Nat was quiet, even as his gut twisted.  It _was_ within a reasonable range of escalation… but it was a bit much too, and enough shit _had_ already gone wrong.  “If he comes back before sunrise, just…  Leave it for after we’re done, alright?”  The last thing Ry needed was more drama to juggle. 

            This was probably Anton’s last run, though, one way or another.  Ry wouldn’t put up with that kind of shit, and Anton wasn’t the first muscle they’d had, though he was certainly the best, with his intensely private nature.  He might be a bit of a moron, but the man had just the right mix of finesse with knives and sociopathic tendencies to be perfect for their line of work.  _Usually, anyway._   In any case, Ryan had a talent for dividing different people’s skill sets into a well-oiled machine. They got shit done perfectly and invisibly with him at the wheel, and when everything went according to plan, everyone got what they wanted and moved on with their lives. 

            The problem, of course, was when things _didn’t_ go as planned.  Before now, any hiccups had been because of a lack of cooperation on the family’s end, and, well…  they had _rules_ about how to handle that, and word spread pretty fast.  People usually cooperated, these days, and if they didn’t, well…  That was what Anton was for. 

            “No,” Natalie snapped.  “If everything’s fine this time, he’s going to think it’s fine to just do it _again_.  For Christ’s sake, this isn’t the time for a fucking pissing contest.” 

            He grimaced again and nodded, agreeing for now; he could talk her around once she’d cooled off a bit, and he wasn’t in the mood for a fight.  He had enough issues trying to chew an ulcer into his stomach; he didn’t need to add Nat in a snit to the pile.  So far, they were holding it together, but frankly, he was starting to lose his faith.  Maybe they’d gotten so settled in that they were losing their ability to improvise.  That, or they were getting too old for this shit and it was time to take up a less high-risk profession. 

            He was starting to think that that hair-raising desire to just bug out on Friday had been more than just the usual pre-game nerves, and he should have forced the issue.  Ry would have been pissed, and it probably would have meant James wasn’t invited to the next job, but…  Maybe he should’ve anyway.  Natalie would’ve followed him without hesitation; she always did, and in the end of the day, Nat was the only one in their little cohort that he actually gave a shit about. 

            Thinking about it, the issue was probably that, at this point, they had their parts down by heart.  _Too damn settled in._   That could be a death warrant in work like this, and maybe it made him old to admit it, but…  He’d spent and banked enough money to be interested in a little bit less bloody of a vocation.  He and Nat had spent enough time posing as a couple over the course of their career with Ry that it had become something in truth, and he’d been debating recently what she’d like as a real wedding ring instead of the handful she traded off using to pose with. 

            He bit the inside of his cheek, turning his mind away from that little internal debate – he’d been chewing on it for a good three months, it could damn well wait until they were in the clear – and focused on when things had begun to go wrong. 

            It had been the same as always, at first.  The two of them had come and set up, just like usual.  By the time Ry and Anton were due in town, everything was ready to go: the new couple would disappear – because he’d lost his job, or she had a sick relative, some other common, convincing circumstance – and a few days later, James would break the security system so he and Anton could make the grab and Nat would play wheelman while Ry ran any interference, kept things smooth. 

            Well, attempted to, at any rate.  Ryan had been on standby at the site while they took the girls, ready to bring them in safe, but some fucking gang had moved into the warehouse _in the middle of the heist_.  They’d had to rearrange their plans from the fucking _car_ , toss the kids in some suitcases and make up something about Natalie’s brother losing his job and moving in with them until he got his shit straightened out. 

            Their gatecrashers hadn’t been the first hitch though.  The first hiccup in their usual pattern was the reason he was trying so hard to convince himself that Anton was being stupid somewhere, where normally he’d be as pissed and as ready to write him off as Nat.  This neighborhood… 

            The issue was, they hadn’t _realized_ this neighborhood wasn’t exactly like every other they had worked in until Friday.  On the surface, it was like every other high-grade slum in existence – with all the same problems, avoidance, hostility and posturing, mixed in with a good bit more violence of a fantastically carnal variety just for flavor.  It had your typical dance of social cells and gangs, with darkening shades of hostility depending on the block.  It was a little unusual in that food and shelter often rose higher on an individual’s rubric than vice, but they had seen that before; it just tended to show up in societies where the crushing deprivation was older, more desperate.  A month into their stay he and Nat had concluded it was just a mild variation, and the other quarters of Amsterdam were all too far, too dark, or too bright for optimal security.  From old census information, the epicenter of this part of town had been the bottom of middle-class’s barrel for nearly a century; evidently, _Libra_ had caused a shift in attitude instead of the cataclysm it had just ten miles east.

            It wasn’t until the day before Ry came in that Karel had, for the first time, given him a genuine smile and offered to introduce him to _Chaos_.  You know, because he could respect James and his wife keeping to themselves so far, being foreigners and all, and living close enough to the edge that he had work outside the area – and it made sense with their talk to move closer to work once they had enough money down – but it was bad manners to ignore the fact that they _were_ living on Devils’ ground. 

            Something in him had broken a little inside, at the realization that all those innocuous little signs, along with a slew of others he hadn’t picked up on, were also in common with _syndicate_ _territories_. 

            He hadn’t tried to hide his surprise; for one, Karel had been watching him like a hawk and he didn’t have a great poker face, and for another, the man had been a valuable source of information.  Of course he knew about the Devil’s Get; they were the biggest gang in the area, but also very... exclusive, in a tight-knit, homespun, church-going way.  The thirty or so of them presented an extremely familial front, and while not unfriendly, they were also… aloof.  The vibe he’d gotten was that they didn’t bother anyone, and in turn, no one bothered them. 

            Apparently, that impression wasn’t wrong, either.  They were just so disinterested in those outside their little clique that instead of absorbing and utilizing the assets surrounding them, they had organized them into self-serving, subservient entities.  Other than occasionally knocking someone back in line, evidently they left people to their own devices. 

            Upsetting that they’d missed something so big, and a hell of a sign that he was _done_ after this job, but not actually a big deal, really.  For all that he’d fucked up a bit, they knew now, and there was still no conflict of interest.  If that had been the extent of it, then he would have just told Karel that it was funny that he brought it up, but the missus had just found them a cheap flat uptown, and he needed to get home to help her try and move their stuff out quick so they could skip on the rent she’d just spent on the deposit. 

            But no, before he could find a good break to cut in with that, the man had mentioned that he might want to reconsider leaving even after they got their nest egg together, because this was a safer neighborhood than people let on.  There were always a couple neighborhood patrols – the kind that carried guns and blades, not just the Militia baton – if you just gave a shout.  No one had scared the missus, had they?  That wasn’t why she barely stepped foot outside the door without him after their first two weeks here, was it?  Because if someone had, Karel needed to fix it.  No one had been able to vet them for a good three weeks – and fuck, but the chill that ran down his spine at the mention of someone following him to work to see if he wasn’t full of shit about his job was cold as ice – and then after that they’d wanted him and the missus to settle themselves out to their inclination, but it had been _weeks_ now, and if his sweet wife Nina was frightened of someone, then he needed to set the guy straight before word got to the Devils that Karel wasn’t taking care of his own.  It was understandable if whatever it was had happened before they put down roots, but James and his wife weren’t outsiders anymore, and there were _rules_ about neighborly behavior. 

            Rules that had a way of being enforced by bloody blades wielded by Devils in the night if rumors started about an area.  Kasey von Koll had a thing about women – should hear what happened to the people who tried hurting his sister, last year. 

            He’d come very close to walking on the whole project, just then.  In retrospect, he was really starting to wish he _had_. 

            Instead, he’d frowned and said that she hadn’t mentioned anything, but he’d talk to his wife, and agreed to ‘something weekend after next’ for meeting up with the mysterious Kasey, as he had a few days off this upcoming week and he’d snagged some tickets to the Aries Rising concert in Paris.  He was planning to surprise Nina with the news of their little vacation tonight, actually; she _had_ been a little down since the move, you know?  Maybe once they got back, Karel could help him find her some friends?  Being cooped up all day long wasn’t good for her, but he just hadn’t known how to go about fixing the problem. 

            As soon as he’d gotten inside, he’d sat down _hard_ and tried to figure out whether or not they were in over their heads. 

            After a few hyperventilated calculations, however, and it looked to be fine.  Strangers weren’t despised, just watched, and the abandoned warehouse they’d set up was out of Karel’s area, if not by much.  He’d be leaving more of a trail behind him than usual, what with just disappearing after his supposed vacation, but he wasn’t worried about it; he had no intention of ever returning to the Netherlands anyway.  Disappearing wasn’t nearly as hard as people made it out to be in the movies, especially when you hadn’t lived by your real name in a good twelve years.  As soon as they had the kid, or kids, in this case, he and Nat wouldn’t be stepping outside until they were in the clear; if anything needed doing elsewhere, that was Anton’s job.  Ryan was checking into a hotel across town on the next day, and would handle the parents from there.  Unless something hitched up somewhere, there wasn’t any need to talk to him until time for the exchange.  Anton would go out to send the proof of life on one of the handful of burners James secured. 

            There was no reason that they’d draw the Devils’ attention throughout the affair, and even if they did, all of the stories about them taking issue with someone was over hurting or extorting women, and the lot of them had a downright studious disinterest in attention from authority or politics.  The only kids he could find evidence of von Koll giving a damn about were either gang and kin, or the ones that belonged to the church he went to something ridiculous like four times a week.  Their extortion of the city’s lead politician, if he even noticed it – doubtful – was something the Devils would, as usual, dismiss as not their problem. 

            And then… he’d had to cancel his theoretical vacation and tuck his surly ‘brother-in-law’ into his living room.  Alongside two cherubically blonde little girls he’d stolen for ransom, but Karel had no idea about that.  He hadn’t had to fake being irritable as hell about his new company and destroyed plans, and the local branch of fucking Dutch Mafioso was leaving him alone. 

            But now, not only was Anton either fucking around or something worse, but he _wouldn’t_ be able to keep said girls as quiet as he needed to after noon tomorrow.  If Anton wasn’t back by morning, he wasn’t going out to give Ry a status update; he was calling to let Ry know the job was a bust, and they were bolting. 

-

***

-

**August 28 th 198 – Thursday – Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s Townhouse – 8am**

            “Oh, Princess!” the man greeted her eagerly.  “Um…” 

            Relena took pity on the man and smiled.  “She’s still in bed, isn’t she?” 

            His returning smile looked a little pained, even as he swung open the door and gestured her in.  “Under pain of death if anyone disturbs her before noon,” he agreed wryly.  “Even if it _is_ the apocalypse.  You’re more than welcome to the common areas, however.” 

            Relena shook her head and came in, Mai and Lin and Mars with her.  “I suppose some coffee would be welcome,” she returned by way of agreement.  She wanted to get Dorothy’s mind onto the logistics of the Cambyses project – since RLTT had responded immediately in the affirmative – but she supposed it could wait.  It wasn’t as though she had any shortage of work, and it all traveled with her easily enough.  With Jake gone, the only traveling she was interested in _was_ just to Dorothy’s decadent little mansion. 

            And besides, she had a state of the art coffee machine, and the men on her staff all seemed to be professional baristas.  There was no denying that the heiress’s priorities were periodically very skewed, but in some secret corner of her mind, she’d decided to show up instead of calling the other woman over for the sake of divine nectar. 

            …Dorothy was a terribly corrupting influence.  She hadn’t even _liked_ coffee when she first allied with the woman. 

            The man’s look was all too knowing.  “Your usual?” 

            She made a half-hearted attempt to glower at him – which only made the man grin – before sighing.  “Yes, please.” 

            “Coming right up,” he returned cheerfully, heading for the kitchen.  “Lady Dontelaine’s in the sitting room, if you wanted to chat.” 

            “Twenty bucks says they were clubbing again,” Mai offered brightly. 

            “No deal,” Lin scoffed. 

            The Australian woman just laughed before moving towards the kitchen herself.  “I’m going to go bat my eyes at Alexis to make me some too.”  She raised a brow at Relena.  “We’re good, yeah?  See you in the sitting room?” 

            Relena shook her head and waved a hand dismissively.  Mai took her responsibility as head of guard while Jake was away seriously, but this _was_ Dorothy’s house, confirmed safe ground – Mai wouldn’t have been willing to let her out of sight anywhere other than here or Sarracenia.  And in any case, it wasn’t as though the boys were going anywhere without her. 

            _Alexis._   She really needed to start remembering the names of Dorothy’s staff. 

            Olivia was indeed in the sitting room sipping coffee, with hair damp from the shower.  “Relena,” she greeted.  “Good morning.” 

            “Good morning.  Did you have fun last night?”  It was only polite, after all. 

            The redhead’s smile was decidedly sated.  “Of course.  You should come with us, one of these days.” 

            Something in her chest panged at the invitation, but she shook her head all the same.  “A bad idea for me, I think,” she disagreed readily.  “All things considered, however, you’re up early.” She’d come over directly after her morning exercise and bath.

            The noblewoman shrugged elegantly.  “Certain mornings I’m up with the sun, and others, I’m simply not.  I’ve given up trying to track the logic of it, truly.  I feel rested enough for now, in any case.”  She smiled indulgently as he took another deep sip from her mug.  “What brings you here so early?” 

            _Right to work, then._   It was rather convenient that her friend was here, actually; she’d wanted Dorothy for the logistical end, but Olivia was much better with the social aspects.  “A new RLTT proposal,” she began, reaching for her bag.  “The financial end is covered, of course, but I need to design the PR angle…” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – 8am**

            Ryan jumped hard and slipped as the shower curtain was thrown open, but before he could catch himself, a strong hand had clamped down on his arm and wrenched him out of the tub, tossing him away.  His head cracked hard on the tile and for a second, the world narrowed town to a single point of light, before the blackness edged back out of his vision.  Desperately, his brain scrambled for an explanation, but the sudden bloom of pain in his ribs didn’t exactly help his swirling head. 

            “’Liss?” he heard a voice ask.  “Find him some clothes, will you?  Something nice, if he has it.” 

            Ryan gasped.  “How did you get here?” he heard himself ask without really thinking about it. 

            “I broke in,” the man returned casually, squatting down next to him and fisting a tight grip in his hair to pull his head sharply into an awkward angle, meeting his eyes.  They were a deep, endless sort of blue.  “I don’t take kindly to people fucking around in my town, you know.  It’s disrespectful.”  He looked away, though even as he did, he threw his head back against the tile, making the world spin again.  “Oh, that’s perfect, love.  Thank-you.  Help me get him dressed?” 

            “Of course,” a woman’s voice answered.  “Roof after this, right?” 

            “Roof,” he agreed.  “No one up there for the noise to upset.” 

            He wasn’t so far gone for his confusion to stop from sinking into outright terror. 

-

***

-

**Budapest, Hungary**

            _Finally!_   It was a measly lead, but all the same, Priya’d take what she could get.  Katriel Dimardin had turned into an absolute ghost after his stay in the Skyview, but _finally_ , she had managed to get something on the guest he’d met there; Odin Lowe had just boarded a shuttle from L3 to London.  Unfortunately, she was too far away to get there by the time he landed…  but it was a start.  Katriel was covering himself a little too well, and whoever this Odin was, he’d know something. 

            Time to head back to Western Europe, then.  The next tap she got on him, hopefully she would be close enough to respond to. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – 10:30am**

            “Oh God,” Nat muttered, staring at her phone. 

            That… sounded about right.  News coverage was all over it, and the body had only been found – obviously thrown off the top of a building – two hours ago. 

            Blonde, in beige suit liberally splattered with blood… head, hands, feet, and knees all mangled with precision, _not_ from the fall.  If he hadn’t known that the building the man had been found by was the hotel Ry was staying at and recognized the man’s favorite suit, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell who it was.  And if the message being sent wasn’t fucking clear enough, according to local forums, the gang for that area had been stirred up like a kicked anthill for that first hour…  and then abruptly just dropped the whole thing and went about business as usual. 

            Whatever they claimed, the Devils really _were_ a fucking Dutch syndicate.  Organized, thorough, and ruthless, with a lot more fucking resources than he’d credited them to.  Cadence had dismissed the entire incident out of hand as soon as it was claimed…  and while he still had no fucking idea what had happened to Anton, he could connect the dots well enough. 

            Cursing, he dug out one of their burners and hit the send on its one contact; Ry had had the other, so his killers ought to have it now.  If they could track it, they’d be long gone from this city, this _country_ , before they could get here, and a courtesy call wouldn’t be remiss, all things considered.  He was glad Nat had talked him into catching an earlier bus and just calling it off now; the longer they stayed, the more likely they’d find themselves _dead_. 

            He’d never been so glad that Ry insisted on memorizing the phone numbers ahead of time, and didn’t have them saved or written anywhere.  It’d probably saved his and Nat’s lives. 

            _“Hello?”_ a smooth male voice answered on the second ring. 

            “6294 Rokin Avenue, apartment 303, alive and unmarked,” he announced without preamble.  “Drugs should wear off around noon.” 

            _“How kind of you,”_ the man remarked in that same smooth, deadly tone, though a hint of mockery seeped through.  He knew perfectly well the corner he’d backed them into. 

            “Congratulations,” James added.  “We’re done.”  Hanging up, he tossed the phone into the nearest trash bin and shifted the strap on his backpack before reaching out to take Natalie’s hand and offer her a tight smile.  “Let’s get out of here.” 

-

***

-

**L2 – Leia’s Condo**

            It was her day off, and she was sitting by the window with a book when it happened.  It was a good thing, really – it meant she realized what was coming a precious few minutes beforehand.  Not enough time to escape, but it was valuable time all the same. 

            When she had seen movement coming into the building’s parking lot she had looked up out of reflex, and her stomach had begun to sink deep in her belly as she saw not one car, but an entourage, mostly comprised of police vehicles.  She knew what that meant, and was aware of how cornered she was here immediately, but still, she only clutched her phone, not activating it, until a man with a long fall of snowy white hair stepped out of the back of a sedan. 

            “ _Aishiteru_ ,” she announced sadly, even as she stood and strode swiftly to the door and threw the deadbolt.  She set it aside a moment as it began to connect so she could heave her weight against the ornate bookcase she kept in the entryway, sliding it in front of the door, its top just below the handle.  It wasn’t as fast as she would like, and her body was trembling by the time she had it done, but it would take more time for them to get past than it had for her to put it in place. 

            Briefly, she debated moving the couch against the door as well, but the call had finally connected and Mariemaia picked up. 

            _“Mom?”_   Her voice was panicked, and no wonder; she’d activated the emergency protocols. 

            “Sweetheart, I’ve been made,” she announced, picking the phone back up as she closed her eyes to hold back tears.  If she hadn’t worried about exactly this happening she wouldn’t have sent her little girl away again in the first place, but she had hoped she was wrong, all the same.  “Marquise is outside.” 

            _“No,”_ her girl breathed, voice vehement even as it began to tremble.  _“He can’t.  Mom, you need to get out-”_  

            “No time for that, Marie,” she cut off.  “I love you; never doubt that.  Stay safe.  Odin knows what to do.  Whatever he decides is best, know that I approve, no matter what it is.”  She took a deep breath.  “I will see you again, darling.  However long it takes, I _will_ hold you again when this is over.” 

            Her baby girl’s only response was to begin to sob, and she felt the tears begin to stream down her own cheeks. 

            “I love you,” she repeated, and forced herself to take another deep, shuddering breath.  “Burn the phones.”  She needed to destroy hers before the Regime men made their way inside, and she would do so utterly, but it was best to leave no possible lingering ties.  Marie had found her once already, against all odds; she could do so again, if it came down to it. 

            Zechs Marquise would _not_ have her daughter. 

            “I love you,” she whispered once more, heart breaking, but ready to accept that the only response would be the sound of the sobs truly beginning to wrench their way out of Mariemaia’s chest.  However much Odin had managed to teach her, Marie was still just a child, and she refused to be upset that her capture upset her daughter so.  Words were lovely, but they were only words; the tears spoke of her love clearly enough. 

            _“I…  I love you too, Mom,”_ she finally whimpered back, and a warm glow spread through Leia’s chest even as someone began to knock on her door.  She walked swiftly toward the kitchen, ignoring it.  _“I’m sorry.”_  

            “Don’t be,” she dismissed softly, not sure why Marie was apologizing, but accepting it all the same.  “Stay safe.”  She swallowed hard.  “Good-bye.” 

            Marie’s breath hitched dangerously again, but she managed to still say, _“Good-bye.”_  

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands** **– New Renew – Noon**

            Marlé closed her eyes as the line died, just… ignoring Amos.  What he thought _really_ wasn’t all that important right now.  She could come up with something to tell him in a minute, or, frankly, _never_ , and he could just get over it.  For now…  right now, she needed Odin, and if this wasn’t an emergency, she wasn’t sure what qualified. 

            “ _Bogey_ ,” she muttered into her phone, relaxing her death grip on the device to reach up with one hand and wipe angrily at her eyes.  She needed to get it together.  Marquise had her _mom_ ; he might be onto them. 

            Odin would know what to do. 

            _“Status?”_ he asked immediately, picking up on the first ring.  She swallowed down all the junk in her throat, trying to get it clear.  She’d programmed his phone to sound off like an air siren if she’d ever used that word, and he would’ve got an alarm from her mom’s call too; he’d be worried.  Scared even, maybe. 

            “They’ve got Mom,” she croaked out. 

            There was a brief hesitation on the other end of the line, then, _“You’re safe where you are?”_  

            “Yes.” 

            _“Stay there and wait for me.  I’ve got a lock on your location, but I’m a few hours out.  Destroy your chip as soon as this call ends.  I’ll do the same.”_

            She swallowed again, nodding.  That made sense.  “Okay.” 

            He hung up. 

            _God, I need to teach him some phone manners,_ she groused suddenly.  _He doesn’t even say good-bye, and he answered the phone with ‘ **status** ’?!  Who even **does** crap like that?_

 _Odin, obviously._   She started to shake again, though this time, she wasn’t sure if it was laughter or tears.  _Oh God._   They had her _mom_.  Zechs Marquise had her _mom_. 

            “Marlé?” Amos asked tentatively. 

            “I’m okay,” she reassured him, however ridiculous an answer that was.  “I…  I’ll _be_ okay,” she amended, staring back down at her phone. 

            Right.  The phone.  _Get it done._  

            “You got a hammer or something?” 

-

***

-

            Duo scrubbed his hands over his face and around the back of his head once he shut the door after himself, gusting out a deep sigh.  He’d called the mayor directly after the kidnapper hung up then gone straight to Karel to follow up, planning to stick to the shadows but still make sure everything went the way it was supposed to.  The crew leader had been damned upset about the whole thing, mostly at himself for not seeing it, but it wasn’t like you could treat every new neighbor like a villain, and Karel _had_ been careful.  These guys had just been good at what they did. 

            He was pretty sure that even the survivors wouldn’t be doing it anymore, though.  The way that guy’d congratulated him?  It seemed like that was going to be it. 

            That, and he was pretty sure the fucker he had Melissa work over before they tossed him eight stories was the ringleader.  Even if those two were as fucked up as could be in the head, he doubted they’d never come back to his town, and after this, he was also pretty damn sure no one else would be stupid enough to try something similar.  As soon as he’d let Cadence know that the whole roof thing was his kidnapping deterrent, the woman leading it had been so thrilled she’d insisted on cooing over him about how he was such a good influence on society. 

            She’d been entirely genuine, too.  While he didn’t exactly disagree, all things considered, the implication in that particular attitude really wasn’t sitting too well with him. 

            Then Fergusen had arrived with the police for his daughters, and right after they’d been confirmed as being fine, _just_ as Duo was about to slip away, the man had somehow recognized him and practically tackled him with a bear hug. 

            It was a minor fucking _miracle_ that his face hadn’t been caught on camera.  He was stupidly fucking lucky his build and body type were so generic, and that more men had taken to wearing their hair long post-Fall.  He’d never been more glad Father Espen talked him into a more local brownish-blonde, because _fuck_ , but rumors were spreading about this. 

            And the fucking _mayor_ had refused to let him go until he conceded that he owed him a favor, at the very least.  _The fucking mayor of Amsterdam_ had publicly, physically _harassed_ him until he agreed that the man owed him a favor! 

            He couldn’t see how his day could get any worse. 

            Then he groaned as he realized the noise he’d been hearing was _not_ the radio, but that the damn kids were upstairs.  Again.  _Great._   Now he had to be _social_.  He considered leaving and just pretending he went straight back to the Den – maybe Melissa would take this one for the team – but he called bullshit on that.  _Toughen up, you’ve avoided the kid’s friend long enough, that he’s going to start thinking you’ve got a bad opinion of her._   And really, girl was a smart cookie; Amos could certainly have done worse, even with how weirdly mobile she was. 

            …Actually, Amos’ tone of voice sounded really upset.  Outright freaked.  He frowned.  _What the fuck?_   He started moving silently up the stairs, straining his ears. 

            “Yes,” a shaky female voice muttered, completely out of sync with his apprentice.  His frown deepened.  _Is she on the **phone**?_   A beat later, “Okay.”  And silence.  Amos had stopped trying to talk over her too, finally. 

            “Marlé?” 

            “I’m okay,” she babbled.  “I…  I’ll be okay.” 

            His stomach sank.  _Oh crap, what **now**?  Shouldn’t have asked if it could get worse._   Entirely resigned to his fate, he reached for the door handle- 

            “You got a hammer or something?” 

            _What?_  

            “What?” 

            There was the sound of some rummaging, probably through a backpack, and a few clicks.  “Um, yeah, never mind, I got it.” 

            **_What?_**   His hand clenched around the handle, and he began pushing the door open, still trying to be quiet but needing to know what the _fuck_ was going on in his house. 

            The little blonde girl’s face was blotchy from tears as he was treated to the sight of her slamming the back end of a screwdriver into a sim card, snapping it into a handful of pieces.  Nigh instantly afterwards she noticed him, and red-rimmed eyes narrowed as they met his, then widened in horror. 

            _Good_.  Whatever the hell was going on, it did _not_ need his input.  In fact, he was perfectly fine with tossing _it_ out of his town too.  He was _good_ at that lately.  “Get out,” he snarled. 

            Her eyes hardened, and her mouth set in a grim line.  “No.” 

            He felt his own expression stiffen at that.  “Get. _Out_. Of my. _Fucking_. House!” 

            She took on a more desperate look.  “I _can’t_.” 

            Just his _fucking day._  

**-**

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Collision course set! Thoughts?


	13. Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs begins to realize he might be biting off more than he can chew, Duo has a hard time reconciling reality, and Jake attempts to sidestep his issues in the interest of moving on with his life. Meanwhile, gossip abounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are again! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter half as much as I did.

**_-_ **

**_ Impossible _ **

_\--_

_The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination. – Tommy Lasorda_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

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**August 28 th 198 **– **Thursday** – **L2** – **Leia** ’ **s Condo**

            “Good morning, gentlemen,” the blonde woman granted, offering them an indulgent smile as she sipped something from a teacup.  “Your timing is impeccable; I’m nearly done.” 

            Milliardo fought to unclench his jaw, with only moderate success.  Leia Barton had barricaded her door so that they had had to spend an _hour_ trying to gain entrance without undue property damage to the surrounding apartments, and she was sitting comfortably in an armchair with a drink, simply waiting for them.  Two suitcases stood on end next to her, as well as an animal carrier.  The small cream and gold colored cat that presumably went in it was curled up in her lap, watching them fearlessly with avid interest as the Barton Heiress stroked it. 

            “Leia,” he greeted, trying to keep his temper in check. 

            “Zechs,” she returned in the same pleasant tone as before.  “You could have done the polite thing and called ahead, you know.” 

 _Yes, I could have called ahead and given you time to escape and change identities again._   He wasn’t about to fall for the false civility.  “I prefer Milliardo, if you please.” 

            “And I prefer Lady Barton,” she noted.  “You forget that this is the first time we’ve met, Marquise, and I do not appreciate your familiarity.” 

            “Sir?” one of his men called from the kitchen. 

            He debated pointing out her own repeated misuse of _his_ name, but she offered him that indulgent smile once again and gestured with her head towards the kitchen as she raised her cup for another sip.  “I believe he’s referring to something you wish to see.” 

            He felt his jaw tighten again as he inclined his head and moved into the other room… and stared at the clear plastic tub of what was clearly some form of acid, containing a disassembled cell phone.  _Ah._   The corrosion was impressively complete, the platters of the circuitry nearly disintegrated entirely, and if the hammer left casually on the counter beside a mask and pair of gloves and goggles was any indication, she’d taken the disassembly rather… seriously. 

            He took a steady breath and looked around, confirming his next thought; all of the pictures on the walls were simply art.  No photographs.  He took a few minutes to briefly investigate the rest of the apartment – three bedrooms, one clearly designated as a guest room, another as a master suite, and the third a study with two desks.  There were no photographs hung anywhere else either.  The second bedroom was clearly untouched; too neat to be regularly occupied, with a fine coating of dust on all its surfaces. 

            If not for the phone’s very pointed destruction, he would have guessed that Mariemaia was still missing.  Then again, there might be other reasons for that display, and a more thorough investigation by his men would clear at least a few things up.  Leia’s cooperation would likely be easier to secure if her daughter was still missing, but if she had truly been lost for so long, it was all too possible that the girl was dead. 

            Based on her performance now, however, he was fairly certain that no matter what the situation, Treize’s ex was… going to be a handful. 

            She offered him a curious look as he came back into the living room.  She’d already set her cup aside and she stood, pulling the cat up on her chest as she did, nearly to her chin.  “Can I help you?” she asked in a tone he was sure every woman ever involved in customer service perfected at some point in their lives. 

            He debated internally for a moment before choosing the most civil approach he could think of.  She had, after all, already complained.  “Lady Leia Barton, I am sure you already know this, but I am Milliardo Peacecraft of Earth, and I require your assistance.” 

            The woman offered him an easy, superficial smile as she scratched her pet behind the ears.  “Do you require a doctor, Mr. Peacecraft?  I’m afraid I’m still relatively fresh from my residency.  I believe you could afford a physician with far more experience than myself, but I will try my best to help, if you insist.” 

            His eyes narrowed, though he managed to summon up a smile of his own at her tease.  “No, I’m quite alright.”  

            Leia offered him a faint frown.  “I’m not sure what I could offer then, sir.” 

            “Perhaps you are unaware,” he pointed out smoothly.  “But with your father’s death, you gained controlling interest in the Barton Foundation.” 

            Her expression would have been easy to mistake for true chagrin.  “Ah, I do apologize, but I am afraid you’ve been misinformed.  You see, I was disinherited at a young age; my father made it quite clear on a regular basis that I was neatly removed from the line of succession even in the instance of my elder brother’s death.  He eventually conceded to my Mariemaia’s inclusion, but unfortunately, she is…”  She frowned as though thinking.  “I’m not sure where she is right now, actually.”  Her smile was wry.  “She’s getting an early start on a fit of teenage rebellion, it seems; hasn’t called in weeks.” 

 _Well, that’s one question answered._   Considering how easily she had given up the information, it was something he would have known shortly, however.  He slowly let out a deep breath, looking back to the suitcases.  “Your bags are packed?” 

            Her smile was a touch smug this time.  “I suspected you might insist.” 

            He nodded sharply, considering the cat.  It wasn’t a problem so long as she kept a hold of it, and considering how calm the little blue-eyed creature was with a dozen strangers traipsing about the apartment, he didn’t imagine it would be a concern.  

            He suspected, on the other hand, that he might have entirely _epic_ issues if he protested her pet’s presence.  “Do you have a leash for that?”  The carrier was all very well and good, but the idea of a cat spooking and bolting out of someone’s arms on a shuttle was vaguely nightmarish. 

            Leia smiled brightly and set the cat down before moving for the carrier.  Surprisingly, instead of following her or skittering off somewhere into the apartment, it continued to stare at him, taking a few steps closer to sniff delicately at his boots before tilting its head up at him again as if in a question.  Milliardo simply stared back, unsure of how to react.  The extent of his knowledge of any kind of pet was relegated to one of his short stays with a foster family before he joined OZ. 

            “Heero,” Leia called softly. 

            “Excuse me?” he snapped harshly, mind whirling… before he noticed the dangling leash and the cat calmly walking back over to its owner, making a happy noise at her. 

            The blonde woman raised an elegant brow at him.  “You did want me to leash him, didn’t you?” she asked blandly. 

            …She had named the cat _Heero_.  Of _course_ she had named it something so…  He forced himself to stop grinding his teeth, and managed to stop himself from bringing a hand to his face.  “Interesting name choice.” 

            Her smile seemed more sincere this time.  “Well, he _has_ been saving me from loneliness, you see.”  She picked him back up and started scratching him under the chin, and a rumbling purr broke out at the renewed attention.  “And pests; he’s an absolute terror on the local earwig problem.” 

            He blinked, suddenly realizing that perhaps it was Hero, not _Heero_ , and wanted to groan that of course he had immediately made the association and jumped to conclusions.  Leia had never met Heero; there was absolutely no reason why she would name her pet after him, and even if she had, it would be funny, not irritating, that Heero was a _cat’s_ name.  It would be rather demeaning even if it had been intentional. 

            “Are you ready?” he asked instead, deciding that if she kept the cat in her arms instead of the carrier, he wouldn’t complain, so long as there weren’t any problems.  At her nod, he gestured for her to follow.  “The men will handle your luggage.” 

-

***

-

 **Amsterdam, Netherlands** – **New Renew** – **2:30pm**

            The sign on the door said that the shop was closed, and he paused for a moment, considering that, before knocking and immediately trying the handle.  Unlocked. 

            He frowned with the door only slightly ajar, pausing to think.  It was the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday, normal business hours.  Then again, different shops often had certain rules, and there were no hours listed on the door, so this could be normal… but it didn’t feel that way.  Perhaps they had closed because they had company, or for some other reason? 

            His instincts said to be careful.  The fact that Marlé should be inside only increased his unease. 

            Still, she had declared this place safe, and was a semi-regular visitor, and presumably, he was expected.  “Hello?” he called in a curious tone, easing the door open in a slow, non-threatening motion, even as he shifted his weight so he was ready to immediately dodge an attack. 

            A woman was leaning against a large desk just near the back of the small room, openly considering him.  Her back to the furniture, she had one hand braced against it in a casual posture, and the other held a hammer in an equally careless grip. 

            Except, of course, for the fact that she was perfectly balanced to move in a millisecond, which belied her superficial body language. 

 _Dangerous._   And by her expression, she was sizing him up for a fight.  She was also not meeting his eyes for longer than a brief second at a time, instead keeping her gaze slightly unfocused, watching his entire body at once so she could see the first sign of movement from him and react to it with whiplash speed. 

            He had literally no idea what he had done to upset her, but it was abundantly clear that she saw him as a serious threat.  And while he didn’t doubt that he could handle her despite what level of discipline she was unconsciously showcasing, he had no desire to fight.  He needed to get Marlé and decide on their next course of action, decipher if the Regime had any way of tracking them – doubtful, given their precautions, but it needed to be investigated – and discard/change anything that might be traceable. 

            He didn’t have time for this, but if he was coming in to this sort of welcome, he had no idea what Marlé’s status was.  She had misjudged something, and he needed to get them _out_ of here…  But he needed to know what condition she was in before he could do that. 

            “Please, come in,” the woman invited after a long silence.  “Shut the door.” 

            He debated exactly how bad of an idea that was – _very_ – before stepping inside and doing so anyway.  This wasn’t going to move along unless he did, he could see that much, and there was still some room for negotiation before the situation escalated.  In any case, whatever was to happen next, he was no more eager for it to be in full view of the street than she was.  The hostility was entirely unwarranted – unless there was history?  But she had obviously been ready for him before he arrived.  Marlé was usually a good judge of character… 

            …and had been carrying a newly fabricated alternate ID for him, with his picture.  If she had seen that, and recognized him… 

            He took in the details of her appearance with more intent this time, debating if she was familiar.  Curly hair of a light ash brown was long enough to reach the middle of her back, pulled over her shoulders in two ponytails.  Grey-blue eyes, unremarkable if appealing facial features, freckles on fair skin, average height – taller than him, but not by much.  She held the hammer with too much ease in a position that would be useless for work and too awkward to be casual, but _would_ be ideal for striking as with a serrated blade. 

 _Dangerous._   And he was relatively certain he had never seen her before. 

            Beginning with a diplomatic route seemed wise.  If she had recognized him and was after the bounty Zechs had on his head, she would reveal it soon enough.  If he could get her to talk, and if talk could resolve this without that too clean tool of hers – _recently disinfected_ – that would be preferable.  

            “If I have offended you,” he began slowly.  “I apologize.” 

            The look she gave him was decidedly… unimpressed.  “Odin, was it?” 

            He nodded slightly in agreement. 

            “I don’t want any trouble,” she informed him in a flat tone. 

            He shifted his gaze pointedly to the narrow point of the hammer before focusing back on her face, debating if he should point out the evidence against that statement.  She gave him a look that bordered between exasperated and amused, but remained poised to attack.  He raised his brows, keeping his hands open and slightly away from his body, as he admitted, “I am also uninterested in any trouble.  I’m only here to pick up my sister.”  Though if she had been harmed, these people would not come out of the situation unscathed. 

            Her eyes narrowed slightly.  “You don’t look enough alike to be siblings.” 

            “We have different mothers,” he explained easily.  Different fathers too, but that was beside the point. 

            “And yet she only talks about hers.” 

            “Mine’s dead,” he allowed.  That statement was usually a good way to get someone to change the subject, he’d found. 

            Her eyes narrowed further.  “Let me rephrase: We do not want any trouble that might follow you here.  Whatever this is about, whatever you fear might be traced through a phone line, we want no part of it, and if either of you _ever_ comes here again, we will retaliate.”  Her lips twitched into a scowl.  “I have a family to protect, and I do _not_ appreciate attention from the government.” 

            The pieces clicked into place, and he let out an internal breath of relief.  There were enough implications in that statement to work with. 

-

***

-

            “I also would rather avoid any attention from the Regime,” the man’s voice returned firmly.  The timbre of his voice was eerily similar to Shov’s.  “Which is why the phone was immediately destroyed, before it could be traced.  Given that the call she received was a warning from the only person we knew who _could_ be compromised, and we had entirely different protocols in place if she had no time to destroy her own phone before being taken into custody, our actions were only precautionary.  Just to be thorough, however, I wiped the cellular company’s files of our devices immediately after hanging up, so there is literally no way the call can be traced back to this location.” 

 _And now I know why the girl knows so much about technology,_ Duo mused, trying to shove down the part of him that felt antsy.  Said girl was eying him uncertainly as he eavesdropped, obviously trying to gauge his mood. 

            For all that she’d freaked him out and pissed him off, she’d had a valid point when she said that her brother would be coming here to get her no matter what, as she no longer had a way to contact him, and if he arrived and she was missing, it would cause a real scene.  

            And also, not that he didn’t appreciate the notion, but when was it that _everyone_ had started being able to hack cell phone companies? 

            “Even if you’re capable of doing that,” Melissa pointed out tersely, “I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.” 

            “Understandable,” that smooth, deep, _familiar_ voice agreed.  “I also don’t know you well enough to tell you about it.” 

 _Damnably familiar._   Shov had always sounded like Heero, before he got used to him.  Just one of those voices, he guessed. 

            “Marlé will miss being able to speak with Amos,” he added.  “But she can move past that.  I’m sorry to have upset you.” 

            …How many people _could_ hack the cell phone companies? 

            “So long as we understand each other, it’s fine,” Melissa returned simply, before calling, “Kasey?” 

            _Right._  That went a lot better than it could have.  Gesturing for the girl to follow him, he headed for the landing and down the stairs, turning to study the mystery man so he’d know him if he ever saw him again- 

_…_

_No._

            He hadn’t looked up yet, watching Melissa warily, waiting until he was on the ground level and therefore more of a threat before he acknowledged him as more than movement and shape.  But… 

 _Oh fuck no._   But how many people _could_ hack the cell phone companies? 

            And he was turning to glance his way since he’d stopped short on the stairs, eyes flicking over the girl behind him in a rapid injury check before focusing on him… and blinking. 

            Recognition.  Disbelief. 

            And a sudden, broad, _very_ _un_ Heero-like smile.  “ _Duo_?” 

            And then he _laughed_.  A delighted little chuckle, those big blue eyes lighting up in outright _joy_. 

            …This obviously had to be an imposter.  Heero didn’t smile – he just stared at you until you either ran away or caved.  It was just someone who looked a whole hell of a lot like him, sounded exactly like him, happened to recognize him at a glance, and- 

            How the _fuck_ was _Heero_ in here?! 

            “Duo?” the girl asked suddenly – the girl posing as _Heero’s_ little sister!  “You mean like-” 

            “Honey?” his wife asked in a very tense, overly sweet voice that meant shit was about to break.  _Not good._

            “You’re alive,” his old comrade breathed, still with that breathtakingly _alien_ expression on his face, taking a step further into the shop. 

            “You’re blonde,” he pointed out, feeling numb.  Something was wrong here… and he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t himself, but it definitely included Mr. I’m-gonna-kill-you being in his house too. 

            Heero blinked and frowned, which, despite being a more familiar expression, just made this whole charade worse, before he pointed out, “So are you.” 

_…I… just said that._

            “I’m going to guess we’re suddenly _not_ kicking them out?” Melissa asked sarcastically. 

            “Er… no.  No, we’re not.”  God, his face was hot.  He’d decided a long time ago that Heero wasn’t dead just because the guy was fucking unkillable, but at the same time, it was one thing to figure, and another to _know_ and- 

 _…I’ve been hosting a **kid** for him for two months.  Two **months**!_   Shit, he didn’t know anything about Heero either, not really, she really _might_ be his sister, and he’d obviously been teaching her how- 

            You know...  That made a _lot_ of little things make sense. 

            The corner of Heero’s mouth twitched.  “You’re a lot less talkative than you used to be.” 

            “Oh, it’ll wear off,” Melissa noted, finally setting down her hammer and relaxing.  “So long as he’s still trying to reconnect his brain to his mouth, though, who are you and how exactly is it that you know my husband?” 

            He was so going to pay for this later. 

            Heero blinked in surprise, and then there was that genuinely happy smile again – it was only starting to get a little less bizarre now – before he took another step forward to offer her his hand.  “That explains a few things.  Heero Yuy.” 

            She blinked a few times herself before letting out a little laugh and moving forward to shake his hand.  “Wow.  It does at that.”  She shook her head a little.  “Melissa von Koll, for the record.”  She gestured towards the staircase.  “And Kasey von Koll.” 

            “Odin Lowe,” he reaffirmed before letting go.  Flicking his eyes back up the staircase, he passed right over Duo to focus on the girl.  “Are you okay?” 

            And suddenly, the little blonde was letting out a sob and shoving past him, flinging herself down the last five steps to launch into Heero…  Who’d already braced himself with arms wide open before pulling her tight to her chest and tucking her head against his shoulder as she began to cry, carding his fingers through her hair. 

            The really crazy part?  He didn’t look uncomfortable.  Just upset. 

            _Holy_ _**crap**_ _._

            Melissa sighed.  “I’m going to let everyone know this was just a misunderstanding.  Make yourselves at home.” 

            Aaaaaand she was leaving him here alone.  With a surprisingly emotionally competent Perfect Soldier and a crying little girl. 

            She gave him a stern look as she walked out – yeah, she was totally getting back at him for this – and he found himself instead meeting Heero’s eyes.  Heero, who was looking at him with something kinda like _concern_. 

            “Hi,” he whispered, not entirely sure why.  His throat was all too dry. 

            His old friend’s smile was wry this time, a little less overpowering.  “Hi.” 

_

***

-

**Alexandria, Egypt**

            “You knew him well?” the woman asked softly, searching his face intently. 

            Razo Charel wanted to sigh uncomfortably under those caramel brown eyes, that sweet, heart-shaped face.  The longer he _looked_ at her the less he doubted it, but frankly that only made this worse.  The woman was beautiful; slim but curvaceous, with the perfectly porcelain skin of the spaceborn and long blonde hair the color of cornsilk held in a loose, complicated braid trailing over one shoulder.  In any other circumstance, she would have been exactly his type. 

            She had introduced herself as Inez Stanton, Robin Stanton’s older sister.  And the family resemblance was pretty damn undeniable. 

            Letters had been sent out last week, finally, to the families of those recognized.  They hadn’t expected anyone to show up wanting to meet the friends of the deceased, at least, not so soon… and the fact that he knew that Robby _wasn’t_ dead was eating away at his insides.  This solemn, gorgeous woman deserved the truth… and he couldn’t give it to her. 

            “I knew him about as well as anyone here did,” he said after a moment.  “He hid himself away inside his head and put on a big act to fool most people into thinking he was something he wasn’t, but he did it to protect us… and he let me in, sometimes.”  _There, not a lie._   “He wasn’t always kind, but he was when he could afford it, and he took punishments meant for us that might have killed us…”  

            He sighed.  _I’m not phrasing this very well._  Trying again, he finished with, “If he hadn’t collected us together and looked after us, fought to keep us sane, I don’t think we would have made it.” 

            And he believed that.  They would have either become like the monsters so many of the men taken by Cambyses had become, or they would have been weeded out as ‘weak’ or ‘rebellious’ when they couldn’t stomach what was happening.  Under Robby’s protection, they had been allowed to hold onto their humanity, however tenuous that grip had been.  It had been what kept them going. 

            And he was still keeping twenty some of them going… somewhere.  Maybe he’d get to see him again someday, and thank him properly; reentering the real world made it clear just exactly how far they had fallen, even if he’d already known on an intellectual level.  By the same token, it made it obvious just how much further they _would_ have fallen if not for Robby’s intervention. 

 _Robin_.  No wonder he’d always insisted on ‘Robby’.  It was a perfectly good name, but combined with his altogether pretty looks, it would have done him no favors in the desert. 

            “That sounds like him,” Inez murmured.  “He was always kind to the point of martyrdom…”  Her smile was wry.  “And to have survived here, he must have had to change, but if he did it to keep his people alive, then…  Well, that’s very like him.  He never could bear to allow suffering to continue if he could do something about it.” 

            And… he felt like an ass all over again for not _telling_ her.  Briefly, he considered who was nearby that could possibly overhear… how likely it was that she would make a loud enough exclamation over the news to draw attention. 

            “I was also hoping to offer assistance to those that he led, if they were feeling displaced,” Inez continued, unaware of his dilemma.  “He obviously cared for you all, and if anyone is having a hard time with getting a job, or wanted to go back to school, well…  Our father left us quite well off before he passed, and I’ve been careful with the investments.”  Her smile was gentle, and genuine, if also a touch melancholy.  “I think he would want that.” 

            Razo fought the urge to blink in surprise.  He’d never gotten the impression that Robby had been well off, especially with his survival skills… but he’d never seemed as though he came from a poor family either, given the education he must have had, to speak so many languages.  And Inez had arrived here, obviously from space, in under a week after the condolence letters had been sent out… 

_Languages._

_“Are you sure?”_ he asked quietly in French, frowning.  Personally, he was happy to attach himself to Colonel Mitchell’s Strike Force for a time, and so were a number of others – for a sense of direction if nothing else – but others, like Nick, just wanted to forget that the past few years had happened at all.  However, having been out of the real world for a few years…  It would probably be impossible for Nick to go back to college, just on his own. 

 _“Absolutely,”_ Robby’s sister answered in the same language without hesitation.  _“In truth, it’s more than a considerable sum, and it does no good sitting in a bank.”_   Her smile had lost its melancholy now.   _“And the future is always a worthy investment.  If a man has the strength of will to survive what you have, then he can accomplish anything he sets his mind to.”_  

 _Well…_   There was still no one else nearby, and he was relatively sure that French was uncommon among the soldiers.  _“Are you really his sister?”_ he asked quietly. 

 _“I am,”_ she agreed. _“Though I admit we are not so close as I have suggested.”_

 _**Present** __tense._  All the same, he made sure to choose his words carefully.  _“I am sure that, wherever he is, it’s a better place than here.”_

            Her smile turned a little mischievous.  If anyone watching didn’t know their conversation, they might have said it was flirtatious.  _“He **does** know the Sahara like the back of his hand.  I do not, but I don’t doubt that he could find refuge… wherever he is.”_  

            He suddenly had the feeling that Robby had faked his own death before; or at the very least, he’d done _something_ that made his sister disinclined to believe he was gone without personal testimony… and with that, her very sudden appearance after the announcement made a _lot_ more sense.  He had already gathered that Robby had done something militant that clashed with the current government sometime in the past; in the end, he supposed it wasn’t that big of a leap.  That knowledge took something of a weight off of him.  _“He wasn’t comfortable with the military,”_ he pointed out. 

 _“And he shouldn’t be,”_ she agreed, still with that flirtatious smile.   _“You really don’t know where he is, though, do you?”_

_“I don’t.  He took everyone else with… interesting histories with him when he went, and didn’t share the details.”_

_“How **very** like him,”_ she mused, before sighing.  _“And he **does** know this part of the world so well, I am sure that if he does not wish to be found, he simply won’t.  Still…”_   She shrugged.  “I appreciate that, Monsieur Charel.”  Her smile was a little chagrined now.  “I am afraid, however, that my grasp of the language is loose enough that I would be grateful to finish our conversation in English?” 

            It was a blatant lie; her French was _pristine_.  “Of course,” he agreed aloud, following her lead.  “But please, call me Razo.” 

            “As you please, Razo,” she demurred.  “All the same, I _am_ interested in offering my assistance.  Could you possibly help me organize it, at least at first?”  The look she cast around the camp was sheepishly lost – though he was convinced, now, also perfectly false.  “At the very least, you could tell me who else I ought to speak with?” 

            Yeah, she was definitely Robby’s sister. 

-

***

-

**Tivoli, Italy – Noin Household**

            Des gave him a _look_ when his phone started ringing out the Imperial March… and Jake just grinned, debating if he wanted to actually pick up. 

            “Seriously?” 

            “Why not?” he defended happily, shifting the baby slightly in his arms. 

            “I hate to think of what would happen if he _knew_ that was his ringtone,” Des pointed out dryly. 

            “I’ve used it for him since we were kids,” Jake dismissed, reaching over to pick it up.  “He had a mask and everything, back then.”  Treize had certainly laughed himself into tears over it, at any rate.  Zechs hadn’t exactly been happy about being cast as Darth Vader, but he’d gotten over the joke after he’d seen Lu break into giggles about it. 

            Of course, Zechs probably didn’t know that he _still_ used it… but he could write it off as nostalgia and friendship, if he wanted to raise a fuss.  Tapping the connect, he brought the phone up to his ear.  “Hello?” 

            _“Jake,”_ Zechs’ deep voice returned.   _“How is Relena?”_  

            “Fine,” he returned easily – never mind that he hadn’t seen her in two weeks.  He’d kept in touch with Hayden and had daily updates on what she was getting up to, even if he wasn’t _doing_ much with the information.  He was actually heading back tomorrow, in any case, and Des and Cassie were coming with him to stay at Sarracenia for a week or so.  All the same, he’d rather not inform the prince of his impromptu vacation.  “What’s up?” 

            There was silence for a moment, a rather heavy one… before the other man grumbled.  Jake raised a brow, surprised, as he stood and looked to Des, who was already coming over to take Lyle back from him.  _Duty calls,_ he thought wryly. 

            Well, he really _was_ heading back in the morning.  “Zechs?” 

            He blinked, startled, as the man _groaned_.   _“_ ** _Why_** _do you call me that?”_ he demanded in a defeated tone. 

            “Because that’s how you introduced yourself and I love you,” he quipped back happily.  “It’s been over three years since you quit using it publicly, and since this is the first time you’re trying to discourage me, I’m calling bullshit on any attempt at recrimination.”  He’d wager, however, that someone who _hadn’t_ known him through the horrors of adolescence was trying to use the name now, though.  “Who’s raining on your parade?” 

            _“Leia,”_ the other man groused. 

            Jake’s thought processes screeched to a halt.  He was pretty sure they only knew _one_ Leia…  “Leia Barton?” 

            _“The very same.”_

            His mouth was dry, and after a moment, he decided to sit back down.  Des had left the room anyhow.  _Leia…_   “I didn’t know we had any intelligence on her location,” he muttered.  “Mariemaia?” 

            If Leia was trying to peeve Zechs… which she _would_ , given half a chance, especially with the last few years’ history… 

            …Zechs had _Leia_.  He closed his eyes. And considering his track record with _Relena_ …  That was _not_ an acceptable notion.  Unlike a fifteen-year-old girl, he had no doubt that his old friend’s beau was more than capable of handing their friendly neighborhood dictator his ass on a platter with impressive skill and regularity, but… 

            He ground his teeth.  Zechs had destroyed his sister’s confidence, her entire sense of _self_ , before Jake had met her, without even _trying_.  And while Jake didn’t love Leia half as much as he did her daughter, he couldn’t allow her to stay in that kind of environment.  He _wouldn’t_. 

            And if he had Mariemaia as well, then any of his angst over the past few months was entirely moot, because he would take the child and run, consequences be damned.  He could think of a few relatively clean ways to go about it, but if it came down to the wire, everything he had tried to build over the past few years could _burn_ for the sake of his godchild. 

            Relena was more than capable of turning the aftermath to her own favor, he was sure. 

            _“She’s been in contact, but not recently,”_ Zechs dismissed.  _“We’re checking over her laptop for any traces, but considering the state of the apartment and the tin of_ ** _acid_** _she dropped her phone in, I doubt we’re going to find anything.”_  

            The world started to spin again; everything was fine.  This… this could be mitigated.  “Did you want me to go through it?” he offered.  He was pretty sure it would be a fantastic dead end – Leia knew how to limit her tracks – but he could make sure. 

            He wondered if she’d used the same bottle of hydrofluoric acid he’d gotten her years ago.  Doubtful, but at the same time, it was a heartwarming idea. 

            _“Maybe at some point, but by the time I could get it to you, it would be a theoretical exercise,”_ Zechs dismissed.  _“I imagine they spoke and destroyed both ends of any communication sometime during the hour we were trying to get inside.”_  

            He didn’t try to fight down the broad grin that stretched across his face at that little tidbit.  His voice, however, he kept complete control over.  “Probably, yeah.  The risks wouldn’t have been worth _not_ destroying the entire network.”  It was certainly how he would have done it, at any rate.  Even if the components were ridiculously expensive, the pros outweighed the cons – and if he knew Leia, they would have planned to be able to destroy them at any time.  Acid was fairly overkill, but… it also made something of a statement.  However no nonsense Leia could be for day to day matters, if you got her in a mood, she had the exact same flair for drama as her paramour. 

            Leia in a mood was a beautiful and terrifying thing to see – like a tiger on the wrong side of an enclosure.  It was in moments like these that you could see exactly why Treize had fallen in love with her in the first place.  “How do you know for sure that they were in contact?”  The woman was also, at this point, quite skilled at creating red herrings to keep her father busy, and despite his bullshit, Zechs didn’t hold a candle to Dekim. 

            Zechs made another irritated noise.  _“Neighbors and coworkers maintain that a girl Mariemaia’s age and a young man in his late teens came to live with her last January, and that Leia pulled a few strings then paid out of pocket to get him some sort of reconstructive surgery on his leg, allegedly as thanks for finding her daughter for her.  But no one has seen either of them since May.”_  

            Well, that answered a few questions as to how little Marie was.  If they had been careful of cameras, then that about sealed it; if their mysterious young man was able to find a woman so hidden as Leia Barton, then he certainly knew how to hide just as effectively, and there was no doubt in his mind that they were in the wind.  “Any photos?” 

            _“_ ** _None_** _,”_ Zechs growled.   _“And other than items that are undoubtedly Leia’s, a few changes of clothes that would fit your average pre-teen and teenager, female and male respectively, are the most personal belongings here.”_  

            _How fantastically professional._   Impressive, really.  Most people accumulated more than they realized; living as a true minimalist and erasing your tracks after leaving a place was something that took effort.  Doing so while still having it feel like a true home to come back to…  That took _talent_ , though whether it was innate or through training was debatable. 

            “Well then…”  There wasn’t much to say to that, other than the fact that really, after knowing the life Leia had lived, Zechs shouldn’t have expected her apartment to be a treasure trove.  Personally, he was upset that he _hadn’t been informed_ they even had a lead.  That boded ill for the future.  “How is she?” 

            _“Implacably_ _**impossible**_ _.”_

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Relena looked up as Dorothy and Olivia stormed into her office, her welcoming smile turning dubious as she noted the redhead’s anger and the blonde’s sheepish dismay.  Briefly, she debated if looking stressed and rubbing at her temples might discourage whatever fit of temper that was about to be flung about the room.  _It wouldn’t._  

            She wondered if she had managed to slight the normally calm duchess somehow, but nothing in particular came to mind.  Normally, after all, it was Dorothy throwing a tantrum, and Olivia vaguely trying to reign her in.  Raising her brows curiously, she asked, “Yes?” 

            Olivia narrowed her eyes, studying her for a long moment, before crossing her arms.  “I’m upset that you think you cannot trust me,” she stated plainly. 

            Relena frowned.  Over the past few weeks, the other noblewoman had become absolutely _integral_ to her planning and negotiations.  She had a talent for seeing what no one else did, for crafting good, unique solutions to problems as they arose.  She put a _great_ deal of trust in her, especially considering the fact that they had only been close for a bare handful of months.  The only things Relena hadn’t shared with her, she shouldn’t have a single _clue_ about… 

            She cast a dark look at Dorothy, who had the grace to look a _little_ ashamed.  _What did she let out?_   Surely, if it were anything _too_ big, then the heiress would be considerably more panicked.  Focusing back on Olivia, she coolly asked, “Exactly what is this about?” 

            The other woman’s lips thinned.  “I thought I had made my intentions entirely clear,” she argued. 

            “You did,” Relena agreed. 

            “If you wanted more, you needed only say the word,” Olivia continued, her voice going terse.  “I had assumed you too contemporary to appreciate the gesture of a vow.” 

            The princess frowned.  This was leading in circles; she still had no idea what her friend was getting at.  “I would never demand anything,” she said at last. 

            Olivia studied her intently for a long moment, before the noblewoman elegantly spread the skirt of her dress and fluidly dropped into a deep, perfect curtsy. "I, Olivia Shantell Dontelaine, solemnly swear fealty to you, your Majesty.  My words, my actions, my power and strength are yours to command as you will.  I follow where you lead, and confront whatever opposition you require.”  She raised her head and those big brown eyes bored into hers.  “I will _not_ be outdone," she announced firmly, almost sharply.  "Not even by a Catalonia.” 

            _...Right.  Dorothy swearing fealty was what allowed up to build our friendship in the first place._   Like Dorothy, Relena knew that Olivia would never make such a vow if she didn’t mean to follow it with every fiber of her being… and her words were far more exacting, binding, than Dorothy’s impromptu declaration, two years ago. 

            _And the curtsy certainly looks more impressive when you’re actually wearing a skirt,_ she couldn’t help but think amusedly.  Turning to smirk at Dorothy, she noted, “I think she’s got you there.” 

            “She had time to _plan_ it,” Dorothy immediately argued.  “I stumbled across you digging through Milliardo’s databanks and had to improvise!” 

            Relena shook her head and stood, leaning down to offer Olivia a hand up.  “I accept,” she murmured.  “Though really, this is only a formality, you know.” 

            “Of course,” she agreed as she regained her feet.  “But formalities are important too, and carry their own weight.”  She pursed her lips, hesitating a moment, before continuing with, “I am not so blind to see that the two of you have worries and projects that I have been excluded from.  Which is your right,” she hastily added when Relena opened her mouth to respond.  “But… I wish to help, if you would allow it.  I may not be powerful in my own right, but I have my ways.” 

            And that, too, was all too true.  _Still…_   “I’ll think on it," she decided.  She knew the Dontelaine duchess well enough by now to know that her vow meant she _could_ trust her…  But she didn’t want to do anything hastily.  That, and if she was going to expand her circle, then Mailin was also to be included. 

            And Jake…  Jake _wasn’t_.  That thought cut like a knife, but it didn’t change the facts.  In any case, most of those ‘other projects’ revolved around what they simply didn’t _know_ about Jake, and she wasn’t ready to try to confront him. 

            She didn’t _want_ to confront him.  She wanted _him_ to realize he could come to _her_ , so she could soothe his fears and they could move on… 

            She suppressed a sigh and smiled at her… liege ladies.  _What an odd thought._   “What do we have on the plate for today, then?”  In the meantime, there were things to do. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands**

            Amos tried not to shrink into himself over the very unimpressed look Melissa was giving him.  He _didn’t_ care if she was upset with him; he’d needed some time alone after seeing Chaos lose it like that, and then the church had felt more welcoming than the Den.  Father Espen and the Sister couldn’t legally let him live there anymore, but a visit was fine.  Even if he’d spent that visit hiding in the priest’s office, not talking to anyone or even letting them know he was in the building.  He’d just lost a friend over something he had no choice over and did _not_ understand, and since Kay wouldn’t _let_ him have a say in what was going to happen, what was the point in talking to _anyone_? 

            He hadn’t really figured anyone would be _looking_ for him. 

            “What?” he finally asked. 

            ‘Liss just shook her head and gestured for him to follow her.  “Come on.” 

            He scowled, but after a moment, did what he was told.  Maybe they would explain what was going on, finally.  It had been hours now; the sun was starting to set.  Marlé’s brother would have come for her by now, and they’d be gone, and he’d never talk to her again.  Kay had taken his phone before he’d told him to go home, while he and ‘Liss waited for Odin. 

            They didn’t talk as they walked, but after turning towards the shop instead of the Den, he began to think he was right… which was a relief.  Kay always had good reasons for what he did.  Maybe, if he could just explain why he’d completely freaked out… it’d be okay.  He’d miss his friend, but if Kay had good reasons…  Well, he’d make other friends – just probably not one as interesting as the girl who randomly turned up at odd moments and showed him how to code.  He _got_ that people could be dangerous, and he could see how Marlé’s sudden need to destroy evidence or something was suspicious… but she’d been sobbing her eyes out at the same time.  Really… however smart she was, Marlé was just a little girl. 

            But…  He could get that maybe she knew some dangerous people.  She certainly knew a lot of stuff that could be dangerous, if she used it the right way; he just hadn’t ever figured she _would_.  She’d been pretty quick to threaten Kay with retribution from her brother when he’d tried to throw her out or suggested he’d hurt her, but… wasn’t that what big brothers were _for_?  Nobody would mess with _him_ because they knew Kay would kill them for it, after all. 

            The shop wasn’t far, so it wasn’t long before ‘Liss was opening the door and leading him in, heading for the loft.  He followed… and frowned, hearing voices. Melissa gave him a wry smile and nodded at the stairs.  “Go on.  Turns out we overreacted.  Kasey and Odin are old friends.” 

            _Old friends?_   That made no…  Well, no, Kasey _was_ a new name – so maybe Odin was too?  Either way, though, he could hear Marlé laughing and talking in an excited voice… and he grinned and he ran up the stairs, ignoring Melissa chuckling behind him. 

-

***

-

**Sahara Desert, Southeast Libya – Adashia**

            Vaska grinned as he considered his new passport.  “Cool.”  Robby’d kept his nationality Ukrainian, which was good – his accent wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.  Closing the little book, he tucked it into his pocket.  “What now, then?” 

            His leader shrugged.  “Whatever you want.  That was the point of all this.” 

            Skye looked up sharply at that.  “You don’t have a plan?” 

            Robby just raised his brows.  “I thought you did,” he returned in a dry voice. 

            “Yeah, I do,” the young man retorted.  "It goes something along the lines of ‘Follow Robby around until he tells me what to do.’” He shook his head.  “I’ve lost track of how many times over you saved my life; you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” 

            The tall blond grimaced.  “Have I mentioned I don’t want to _be_ Robby anymore?” 

            Grant tilted his head.  “What does your one of these say, then?” he asked, gesturing with his own travel papers. 

            “Katriel Dimardin,” he returned promptly. 

            “Kat, then?” Dana half asked. 

            “Sounds like a woman’s name,” Jon argued. 

            “It’s closer to my real name than ‘Robby’ was.” 

            “ _Not_ the point,” Charlie pointed out.  Focusing back on their leader, he asked, “Do you really want to send us away?”  There was a… _hurt_ , in his tone. 

            Robby – Katriel – stared at him all big-eyed for a moment before closing his eyes and moving a hand to cover his face.  “I thought you had your own goals,” he finally announced.  “I hadn’t planned any further ahead than that.” 

            “You usually need to know something about the world before you can form those,” Vaska returned cheerfully, glad to know he wasn’t _trying_ to abandon them… and amused at his leader’s confusion.  “And I, at least, want to know if yours are like mine, before I get swallowed up by someone I don’t trust.”  Around him, there was a series of nods, or noises of agreement. 

            They’d come a long way, in the months since their escape.  Isolated like this, they’d been able to figure out what _mattered_ , without any pressure to conform one way or another.  He didn’t personally have a history with the Regime that would have gotten him in trouble if he stayed with Razo, but he didn’t like what he’d seen of the organization before he’d been taken by Cambyses either – and he _knew_ Robby, trusted him. 

            _Katriel.  That’s going to take some getting used to._  

            Most of the others _did_ have reasons to avoid or hate the Regime, though, Katriel included.  So, so long as he didn’t want to do something utterly crazy like the hell they had just crawled out of, he’d be at his friend’s back.  After all that they’d been through, then the weeks living together in relative luxury with no outsiders, these men were his family, his brothers… and he’d lost too much to want to give up the family he’d found. 

            Everyone else seemed to think the same way. 

            “So…  ‘Follow _Katriel_ and do his bidding’ then,” Skye announced, looking around mock innocently.  “Did I miss anything?” 

            The others laughed or at least grinned, though Katriel just hid his face in one hand again. 

            He’d never done that before coming to Adashia, but personally, Vaska found the new mannerisms comforting.  Robby had changed the most out of them, but for the better, he thought – at least, for the better so long as he wasn’t planning on leaving them behind now.  Cory was starting to act more like a kid too, and the others had lost their fear…  Sarcasm had made a rather impressive comeback while their leader was gone, actually, and it looked as though the man didn’t know what to _do_ with that. 

            _He’ll figure it out, though._   He always did. 

            After the laughter died down and the expectant silence was starting to become uncomfortable, Katriel dropped his hand, and leveled them all with a flat, serious look. “Quatre,” he announced. 

            “Huh?” 

            His fingers clenched into fists.  “My name,” he ground out after another long moment, “is Quatre Raberba Winner.” 

            _…Wow._   That…  Well, it definitely explained why he didn’t want to go with Colonel Mitchell. 

            “You know,” Darren muttered.  “When I was wondering what ‘Robby’ was short for, ‘Raberba’ never got on the list.” 

            “That’s kinda the _idea_ ,” Dana pointed out as he elbowed him. 

            “You don’t really _look_ like the pictures, though,” Grant pointed out. 

            A smile tugged at the corner of Quatre’s lips.  “That _was_ kinda the idea," he repeated.  “I had my hair dyed brown when Cambyses took me.” 

            “You got a hell of a growth spurt,” Jon agreed, eying him.  “And I always thought your eyes were odd; never seen anyone with a that light of a brown before, let alone with specs of blue.  You did something to them, yeah?” 

            The smile that had been tugging at his lips finally spread across his face.  “Yeah.  I was hoping it would be more permanent than it was, but I got close enough.”  He eyed them all for a moment before noting, “You’re taking this better than I expected.” 

            “It doesn’t change anything,” Charlie pointed out.  “Other than Skye’s declaration, at least.” 

            “I revise!” Skye announced.  “‘Follow _Quatre_ around and be his minion.’” 

            “And see, that’s easy to fix.” 

            “I don’t want to fight anymore,” Raph spoke up quietly.  “But I don’t want to be left behind either.  If you’re going to go against the Regime, there’s got to be something more… behind the scenes that I can do, right?  Organization, or something?”  Bern and Felix made noises of agreement. 

            “ _I_ am pretty decent in an MS," Darren announced.  “I flew an Aries, mostly, but I’m not too bad in a Taurus.”  He smirked.  “Damn glad I never met _you_ on the field, all the same.  Or any gundam pilot.  I was in on the Alliance coup, though.” 

            Quatre frowned.  “Treize is alive, you know; just in hiding.” 

            “Treize never killed for me, took a beating for me, or scrounged up old voodoo medicine for me when I got sick,” Darren pointed out.  “I’m sure he’s got plenty of loyalists under him, so I’m hardly any loss.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  “It wasn’t voodoo medicine.” 

            “Whatever,” he returned cheerfully.  “My point stands.  I may have been in OZ, but it’s not like I ever _met_ Treize in more than passing.” 

            “Though, while that’s cool and all,” Charlie piped up.  “We can’t all travel in a group, unless we want to pretend we’re on a tourist trip or something, and even then…  Twenty-three guys?  That makes people nervous.” 

            Vaska nodded.  “So we need a good way to stay in touch, and move in smaller groups,” he mused. 

            “Either way, we should stay here as a base unless we have a financial foundation to move off of,” Felix decided.  “I mean, no one really even knows this place exists, right?”  He blinked, focusing back on Quatre.  “Or you’re, you know, Winner, and we _do_ have finances?” he asked curiously. 

            Their leader just frowned at him for a moment, before covering his face again and sighing.  “Maybe.  I’ll look into it.” 

-

***

-

**August 29 th 198 – Friday – Prague, Czech Republic**

            Sally picked up her phone as it chirped cheerfully at her that she had a text.  She wasn’t expecting anything, but communications were a near constant, so it was probably some sort of update… 

            _‘Sally, you probably already heard that I had to get a new phone.  This is my new number.  -Odin’_

            She nodded a little to herself as she went through the process of saving the number in her contacts.  “Did you ever find out what your boyfriend _did_ to his phone?” she asked curiously.  The previous ‘it caught fire’ excuse had certainly been memorable, but it had already been implied that this time wasn’t accidental.  Lucrezia had just informed her upon arriving back on base that she’d had to destroy her own for safety precautions, which was surprising, seeing as it was _Heero’s_ security… but, well, better to be thorough than sloppy. 

            Lu shook her head, leaning forward and gesturing impatiently for the device, and Sally gave her an amused smile before handing it over.  “He was in a rush; wanted everyone he had talked to on either his or Marlé’s phones off the network ASAP.  He said it was precautionary, but, well…”  She grinned as she leaned back in her chair and started tapping away a response.  “The man doesn’t do things halfway.”  Shrugging a little, focused on the screen, she added, “He said he’d have me back online within a few days, and I’d already said I was interested in his system, so the only real annoyance was that I had a few hours before I got in and could tell you that I was technically incommunicado.  You already knew where I’d be when, so…” 

            Sally nodded, leaning back in her own chair.  It wasn’t that she disagreed with the action; quite the opposite.  She just wanted to know _why_.  But presumably her general was asking the pilot that, and would have better luck getting details than herself.  They’d been in the middle of discussing supplies and what Howard had said about the effects of Zechs’ little romp through space on their assets there, but she was curious enough to wait.  

            She couldn’t help but raise her brows, however, when she spotted a nearly naughty smile on her friend’s face as she continued to tap at the screen.  “What?” 

            “He wants to know what phone model I want, so he can set it up,” she returned brightly.  “Marlé wants to play with the functionality of one of the high end ones.” 

            Sally’s lips twitched, but she wasn’t sure if it was in amusement or annoyance, this time. “The security breach?” 

            Lu frowned a little and continued in her nearly nonstop tapping, then grimaced.  “Personal,” she muttered.  “Marlé’s mother was just taken into custody, apparently.  The way she went about it meant they _should_ have had buffer time for her to thoroughly destroy her phone, but she didn’t clarify, and he wiped the cell records of every device they had frequent contact with to be sure.”  She shook her head.  “Poor girl.” 

            The older woman frowned.  “Do we know why Heero became involved with her in the first place?” 

            “No.  I’d assumed it was random circumstance, but if her mom was a person of interest to Zechs, then it’s probably more involved than that.”  Her fingers still hadn’t stopped moving. 

            The leader of the rebellion watched her for another long moment before declaring, “No sexting on my phone.” 

            Lu snorted.  “I’m asking after Marlé.  The kid turns thirteen next month, and from what I heard her say before, she’s pretty close to her mother; this is probably hitting pretty hard.”  She paused and raised a brow.  “Sexting?” 

            She laughed, glad to finally get a reaction.  “You’re looking a little too happy,” she pointed out. 

            The other woman rolled her eyes.  “You’re ridiculous, and fishing for information.”  She considered for a moment before adding, “Badly.  You need a life.” 

            “I don’t get out much,” Sally mused by way of agreement.  Really, she _couldn’t_ get out much; she was far too well known, and her features too distinct.  “I’ll just live vicariously through your exploits,” she decided. 

            Her friend snorted, beginning to type again.  “It should be interesting to see you accomplish that, what with me not talking.” 

            “I’ll wear you down,” she returned cheerfully. 

            “Or make it up as you go.”  She smirked.  “I’m altogether curious to see what torrid fantasies you manage to come up with.” 

            “That _could_ be fun,” Sally agreed with an absent expression, tapping her lips.  “And it might give you ideas to try.” 

            Lucrezia started laughing outright, dropping her hands to her lap to give her an incredulous look.  Sally smirked and gestured.  “Give me back my phone.”  The other woman just rolled her eyes… and started typing again.  She scowled.  “Noin.” 

            “Hush, I’m giving you ideas,” the other woman returned in a conspiratorial tone. 

            Sally grinned at that.  “Are they dirty ideas?” 

            “Extremely,” Lucrezia assured her in a dry tone, face hidden behind the screen.  “Just give me a minute to come up with an appropriately disturbing way to describe a octo-core processing chip.” 

            Sally considered that.  “Dual core sounds more romantic?” she offered, fighting to keep a straight face. 

            “But less intense,” her friend returned in the same clinical tone. 

            Sally’s lips twitched in spite of herself.  “I doubt you’re having any problems with his _intensity_.” 

            Lucrezia’s shoulders shook as she fought down a laugh, still looking pointedly at the screen she was typing away on. 

            “Besides,” Sally added.  “You’ve already made it clear that you have no intention of sharing, so stop trying to sidetrack me with orgy notions.” 

            The other woman dropped the phone in her lap again, giggling.  “You’re terrible.”

            Sally gave her a bright smile.  “Give me my phone back.” 

            Lu made a face at her, bringing it back up to type.  “In a minute.” 

            She narrowed her eyes.  “In the end, though, I imagine it all comes down to RAM.” 

            “Just let me finish what I was saying!” the other woman protested as she laughed.  “So I can actually _get_ my new phone!” 

            Sally rolled her eyes, even as she smiled and leaned back.  “Two minutes,” she compromised.  “We’ve still got work to get done.” 

            “Whatever goes on in that head of yours,” Lucrezia noted dryly as she finished her message, “I _do_ put my job first.”  She raised a brow at her.  “It’s a little hard to get things _done_ without personal communication.”  Shaking her head as she focused again on the screen, she added, “Fixing that is something of a priority.  That fact that I’m getting said phone from a man I’m seeing has little to do with it.” 

            _Mm, point._   Some of her annoyance abated. 

            “I also feel the need to point out,” she added after another moment.  “That the man is a professional.”  She smirked.  “And I assure you that he’s quite good at _everything_ he tries.” 

            Sally guffawed, not having expected the switch back to innuendo. 

            “Not that I’ve had the opportunity to vet him thoroughly,” the dark-haired woman continued in a bland tone.  She tapped once more at the phone with a sense of finality.  “There, done.” 

            “I think I might just hate you,” Sally informed her cheerfully, reaching out for her phone once again. 

            “If it helps you sleep at night,” her friend returned serenely, leaning forward to hand it back… only to stop and sit back in her chair when it chirped again. 

            “Oh come on!” 

            Lucrezia laughed delightedly, eyes again focused on the screen.  “Oh dear.” 

            She resisted the urge to sigh.  “What?” 

            “Hilde’s talent for finding trouble has struck again,” her general noted.  “That or Adam’s, depending on your perspective.”  Her lips twitched.  “Who did you have her watching, again?” 

            Sally frowned, debating _taking_ the damn thing back, but unfortunately it would require a rather awkward and undignified launch across her desk – which probably also wouldn’t _work_.  And truthfully, if Lu _had_ had a phone, this was a report that would have gone straight to her anyway.  “One of the more extremist cells that’s a little too heavily armed for my liking,” she admitted.  They couldn’t go around eliminating other rebel cells because the nightmare of reputation would hurt their cause too much, but at the same time, she couldn’t leave some of them unchecked either.  The group she’d sent the girl out to surveil was one of the few she was getting dangerously close to assassinating anyway.  “In southern France.” 

            “Mm.  Well, apparently Adam’s tolerance runs lower than yours.  According to her, he went in something like guns blazing, and she decided he was being stupid and followed him in as back-up.”  She pursed her lips.  “Hard to say if she was overreacting or not, with how Trowa’s always done things, but he hasn’t tried to lose her yet, so he’s probably at least a little appreciative.” 

            Sally rolled her eyes.  _Doesn’t it figure._   Not that she wasn’t appreciative of all the help herself, but her life had admittedly been a bit more _predictable_ before those boys had started popping up out of the ground like daisies after rain. 

            _And in any case…_  She sighed, knowing she was opening herself back up to this, but really, there wasn’t any other option.  “See if he’ll agree to being tagged with a phone if Heero designed the system,” she ordered resignedly. 

            “Actually, Marlé did.”  Lucrezia’s grin was broad as she punched in the request. 

            “ _Heero_ can clarify that at a later point if he feels like it,” she groused. 

            “Odin,” Lu corrected. 

            “Odin,” she agreed tiredly.  _Odin, and Adam…  God only knows what the other three are using for names anymore.  I’ll never manage to keep track._   "Did he ever explain where he got Heero from?"  She’d already heard the explanation about how he was using his birth name now, and it was only fair that she start remembering it, but really… 

            “Assignment,” Lucrezia dismissed.  “Right before Operation Meteor.”  She made a face.  “I get the impression that he didn’t really have a name at _all_ while the Bartons trained him, but decided to not ask.  Dr. J gave him the code name Heero Yuy, and apparently he didn’t really have anything to fall back on until he started reverting back to his childhood for direction.  He’s not really sure about Odin either, to be honest, but apparently it was his father’s name, and he means to keep it.” 

            She frowned.  “He remembers his father’s name, but not his?” 

            “Apparently he always said he wasn’t his father,” her friend returned blithely, leaning over and dropping the phone back on her desk.  Her expression was faintly amused.  “And always called him ‘Kid’.” Her shoulders shook slightly as she suppressed another chuckle.  “True to form, however, he’s decided to ignore what anybody else says and do what he wants…  So yes, he remembers his father’s name, but not his own.” 

            Well, no one had ever claimed he wasn’t decisive.  Even when he passed the buck, he damn well _did_ it, and God help anyone who stood in his way.  “Well, it makes more sense than ‘Adam’, at least.”  She gestured at the papers still littering her desk.  “Shall we?” 

-

***

-

**Toulouse, France**

            Hilde puffed out a breath, trying to get her hair back out of her face as she shifted the weight of the duffel on her back.  “Where exactly are we going?” she asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. 

            Adam continued to look around thoughtfully for a moment, before turning left.  “This way.” 

            Making a face, she soldiered on after him.  Really… she only had herself to blame.  She hadn’t had to come with, but she’d wanted to know what the man was going to do next… and his solution had been to shrug and hand her a bag full of guns and ammunition he’d taken from that rebel group. 

            A _bigass_ duffel bag full of heavy artillery.  She was half excited over the fact that he’d said she could keep whatever she wanted, and half disgusted at the idea of carrying it another ten feet, let alone back to Prague.  She was going to have to make up her mind about that soon… before they got to wherever the hell they were going. 

            “Mm…” 

            “What?” 

            He gestured at an overpass.  “Up there, I think.” 

            “…You think?” she deadpanned.  She’d been really trying hard to not consider this option from how he’d been acting for the past half hour, but…  “You have no idea where we’re going, do you?” 

            “I have several ideas,” he disagreed, starting towards the structure.  “They’re just not very organized.” 

            _...How is it that these guys are all so much more **whimsical** than Duo ever realized?_   She’d thought _Heero_ was bad, but now it looked like Trowa was just wandering around armed to the teeth and suspicious looking to any authorities just because he could.  With her in tow.  

            Sighing, she decided to just… roll with it.  Seemed to work well enough for the General, right?  “Do I get to know any of these ideas?” 

            “This looks like a good place,” he returned easily.  “I like it.  That’s usually a good sign.” 

            _Well, so much for that._   Maybe gundam pilot logic only made sense if you’d been hit with a couple doses of the Zero System. _If this doesn’t get anywhere in the next hour, I’m **so** gone._  

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Relena beamed as she dashed out into the driveway.  Whatever shadow hung over her relationship with her bodyguard, she had _missed_ her best friend these past few weeks, and he was finally back.  And, based on his broad grin when he saw her, he was doing much better.  Laughing, she ran over and pulled him into a tight embrace, which he returned with equal enthusiasm. 

            That stiffness, his careful precision, had disappeared, and she reveled in it.  She had no doubt that it would be back soon, probably within the hour, but for now…  “I missed you,” she announced quietly, face buried in his chest.  She fought to keep herself from fisting the material of his shirt in her hands; that would be too much, and might start to undo what peace he had managed to find in the Noin household.  She was pushing her luck as it was, she suspected.  “But you look better.” 

            He inhaled deeply in that way that she knew he did when trying to stay calm, when taking in her scent… and his body relaxed further.  “I feel better,” he admitted just as quietly.  “Sorry.” 

            She shook her head, decided any longer this close to him would become awkward, and stepped back.  “Everyone needs a vacation, sometimes,” she dismissed.  _Even if it’s a vacation from me._   That still hurt, but not as badly as when she’d sent him away.  If even half of what she and Lin suspected was right…   _Well._  

            His smile was grateful as he shifted back, tucking his hands into his pockets.  “Any trouble while I was gone?” 

            “I think Dorothy took Daniella clubbing,” she admitted.  “But I have no solid proof.”  The girl hadn’t been wearing any make-up yesterday, but it was a little thick this morning, and she was more drowsy than usual.  “Beyond that… no trouble, no, but it might take you a little while to catch up.”  She smiled.  “I have a new project running with RLTT concerning the Cambyses survivors – reintegration and counseling, to say nothing of a rather massive PR campaign.” 

            He nodded thoughtfully.  “That makes sense…  Someone had to pick that issue up before it became a problem.” 

            She watched him carefully as he spoke, but even as she did, he knew he wouldn’t give anything away; he was too practiced for that.  There was even the chance that this was the first he was hearing of her involvement with it; Mailin’s research on the colonel’s work history had certainly been enlightening, but not definitive. 

            “As for the clubbing,” he continued with a grimace, “I’m surprised it took this long, to be honest.  Frankly, they probably only waited to be sure that everyone knew you had a look-alike in the area.”  He shook his head.  “I’ll talk to Addie, but she probably already knows; chances are she was part of the group.  She’s always been a believer in education through supervised mayhem.” 

            He had told her when they first came across the sisters that he’d met Adelia Fonne during a reconstruction project they’d both worked on in L2, back in 191. 

            He hadn’t mentioned that it had been an RLTT project. 

            Addie had a slim silvery bracelet that she’d only been too happy to show off when asked, with a charm bearing the same phoenix pattern and the same quote etched into the band as Relena’s necklace and Delilah’s bangle.  She hadn’t been a candidate, for all that she’d done a great deal of the administrative and hands on work.  The bracelet had simply been a parting gift from Jake when they went their separate ways; a trinket of little worth but great sentimentality. 

            Leia Barton, Sita Freeman, Lucrezia Noin, Edgar Atene, Yihsuan Shan, Carley Secody, Delilah Criel, Desmond Rocke, Kahea Etsitty, Rae Haskan, Franklin Harvey, Howard Oclaire…  All were prior candidates for the RLTT fund, and she was now positive that they also all had some piece of jewelry or trinket with the same quote and sigil.  And from the work history Mai had been able to piece together for him, she was also certain that all of them had met Jake at some point, though whether or not they remembered him was anyone’s guess.  They hadn’t been able to find direct involvement from him in every past project, but he was there in a position with some degree of power, always just _too useful_ to replace, in far too many to be coincidence.  She had met Jake maybe a month before being selected by the Fund, and from that day onwards, he’d been deeply involved in _every_ step she took, running logistics, arranging contacts, helping coerce her brother to do what she wanted… 

            If she hadn’t received responses from RLTT while the man was asleep next to her, or when she knew he couldn’t have otherwise possibly be the source… 

            _No._  She was convinced that he was deeply in bed with the RLTT Fund, but from what they had pieced together, his position in that web was likely much the same as it was within her own organization.  Absolutely integral and highly influential, but not sitting the throne, as it were. 

            He worked far better from within someone’s shadow, after all. 

            Her knee-jerk response to first realizing her necklace from him was but one of many had been offense, but once she’d had a moment to think it over, she realized how silly that was.  He had barely known her… and it had hardly been a present – more of a necessity, after her stunt during their first trip to Munich.  He had gone out of his way to make her something beautiful and fitting – something that, as Delilah and Addie had proven, he usually only gave with a farewell – after only knowing her a few months.  She had gotten her first glimpse of the man that lived under his many masks that day she had saved the boy who reminded him of his dead brother, but however revealing it had felt at the time, in hindsight, it had been only the barest tip of the iceberg.  And since then…? 

            The clothes, this beautiful home… her heirloom furniture.  He had carefully handpicked her guard not just for her safety, but for future political acumen.  He had taught her to defend herself from any threat including someone as skilled as himself – _especially_ someone as skilled as himself.  Before hiring Vaughn, he’d driven her everywhere, had catered to whims she hadn’t even recognized before he showed up with the results, been her closest friend and confidant through _everything_ that had happened this past year and a half…  

            She couldn’t imagine life without him, anymore.  It was hard to even remember who she had _been_ before she met Jacob Miller.  Trying to recall the patterns her thoughts had run in was nearly impossible.  She’d been such a _girl_ at the time, and everything had changed so much…  It was hard to believe it had really been less than two years since she returned to Brussels.  It felt like an entire lifetime. 

            And… she was utterly _in love_ with this dangerous, secretive man, no matter the consequences. 

            All things considered, it was probably a far less devastating conclusion than if she had managed to finish falling for Heero.  Jake was capable of refashioning the world around him to suit his needs, whereas Heero…  That could have ended rather badly.  For all the trouble between her and Jake right now, she knew it could be managed, and in truth, the gundam pilot she had fancied herself in love with had been little more than a stranger.  She _knew_ Jake, inside and out, and he her. 

            And based on what they knew now, the argument she and Lin had overheard with David was just… heartbreaking.  She _knew_ he loved her, he showed it in every little thing he did, everything he had done since waking from his injuries last December… and he did it all with the firm belief that she would scorn him when she learned he hadn’t been entirely truthful.  

 

-

            _“I’m not so naive as to think this is going to end without something shattering.  The best case scenario is the only one who burns being **me** , so forgive me if I’m not **ready** …  …Dave… I can’t let it happen again…  Gamble with your own soul; mine’s got a bit of mileage.”_ 

-

 

            …He was such an idiot.  As if she didn’t have her own secrets.  As if she wouldn’t _welcome_ an alliance with Treize; they even had a _history_ of working together, what with the whole stupid Queen of the World nonsense.  After everything that had happened, she couldn’t think of a single reason why their interests wouldn’t coincide, and even if they didn’t, really, did he doubt her ability to play the politics with the man, after all she had accomplished?  With the exception of Mu, he’d already gone to great lengths to make sure her people would only ever be loyal to _her_ , after all.  He’d been preparing for her to learn the truth ever since the formation of the Strike Force. 

            She was half tempted to call Mitchell and ask him to arrange a meeting.  She really was.  The only thing stopping her was the fact that she knew, if she could get her colonel to calm down and realize that this was _not the end of the world_ , he’d heal from all this faster than if she slammed it in his face or went behind his back. 

            In any case, Des had gotten out of the car while the two of them were talking, and she went to impulsively pull him into a hug as well as Jake offered a hand to Cassie as she climbed out with an armful of baby.  Noin’s father chuckled lightly as he returned the embrace.  “Hello again,” he murmured. 

            She pulled away with a bright smile.  “Hello.”  Glancing briefly back to Jake, she added, “Thank-you for looking after him.” 

            “Always a pleasure,” he dismissed.  “Sometimes, we all need a hand or haven.”  His serene smile was so achingly like his daughter’s that it felt like a physical wound, but only for a moment.  “Next time, though, you should come too.”  He gestured at the grounds.  “Get away from all this.” 

            “That sounds lovely,” she agreed, for all that she couldn’t see herself as being _able_ to take a vacation any time soon.  There was a _reason_ her father had tried to treat taking her along on business trips as vacations; it was as close as he had really ever managed, even though it was a poor substitute. 

            _I’ll **make** the time,_ she decided.  However devoted to his career her father had been, what had it gotten him in the end?  How well had he known her, really, even when she had gone out of her way to spend every moment of time she could find with him, working alongside him?  The only time he ever seemed to spend with her mother was when they went to bed, and considering the fact that she had never had any siblings… 

            Actually, she wondered how healthy the Darlian marriage had really been.  They had always been quietly affectionate when together, but… that had been it.  Her mother had arranged parties and visited with friends, spent time with Relena…  But in retrospect, she rarely even _spoke_ of her husband except in passing, or when Relena had asked a direct question.  They had both loved her, she knew, but… 

            She resisted the urge to sigh as she turned to Cassie.  These were questions she would never know the answers to, and all she could do was hope for the best… and use their example for what she did or _did not_ want in her own life.  Seeing the way Des watched his young wife every time he glanced her way…  _That_ was what she wanted for herself.  And the way that Jake idolized Des, had in some ways modeled himself directly after the man, the way he was even when trying his best to keep their relationship strictly platonic, boded well for the future.  

            She could see why Noin had turned out so well; she had had an excellent role model. 

            “Hi!” Cassie greeted cheerfully.  “I’d hug you too, but-” 

            “Here,” Jake interrupted, reaching over and deftly plucking the infant from her arms. 

            Cassandra Noin laughed and took a few quick steps forward to throw her arms around Relena.  “Thank-you for having us!” she gushed.  “Your home is absolutely gorgeous, and we haven’t even seen the inside yet!  I’ll have to make sure I’m not such a bother that you don’t want to have us over again.”  She leaned back and offered her a wink.  “That or I’ll just bribe you with baked goods so that even if I’m obnoxious and my son wails endlessly, you appreciate my company anyway.” 

            “We do have a detached guest house,” Jake noted, clearly amused.  “And, like, four kitchens.” 

            “And there _is_ another baby in the house somewhere,” Relena added, shaking her head. “With that preamble, I’m a little hesitant to say it, but I will anyway: you’re welcome here any time you like, no bribery necessary.”  Jake considered them family; that was enough for her. 

            “Oh, you’ll want the bribes,” Des argued good-naturedly, moving around her to wrap an arm around his wife.  “Lyle’s a quiet baby, but no one sane passes on playing guinea pig for a pastry chef.”  He grinned and offered in a stage whisper, “And she really _does_ get out of hand if you try keeping her out of the kitchen.” 

            The princess smiled.  “In that case, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of appreciation for your talents here,” she decided.  She’d caught that Cassie baked, obviously, from her visit to their house; she hadn’t realized the woman was talented enough to warrant a title, though.  “But let’s get you settled in before you get too far ahead of yourself,” she suggested, turning back to Jake… and freezing. 

            It wasn’t anything that most people would find unusual, or dramatic, really; he was just standing there holding a baby.  It was a slightly incongruous image, considering how the tender, practiced care he was obviously taking with the child contrasted with his faded, baggy blue jeans and worn grey t-shirt, but not truly out of place; plenty of men were fathers before their twenty-second birthday, to say nothing of brothers or uncles, or… 

            …His expression was so _focused_ , so _delighted_ , _content_ , as he gazed at his godson.  He had always shown a deep love for children everywhere they went, but… he was entirely _enraptured_ by this boy who wasn’t even three weeks old.  There was something incredibly _right_ about the sight, almost _holy_ … 

            He looked up at her and his smile was oh so bright, happy, yet still only a candle compared to the bonfire it had been for the child in his arms.  “The guesthouse is good, right?” he asked by way of confirmation. 

            Her breath only caught in her throat once before she managed a smile and nod.  “I’d assumed as much,” she agreed, trying to calm her whirling emotions.  Summoning up a smirk, she made a shooing motion.  “Lead on, you.” 

            His laugh was one of his genuine little cackles as he winked and turned to do just that.  Cassie darted after him and started to talk excitedly about something or other, but Relena just couldn’t make herself pay attention, instead watching her colonel walk away with no lines of tension in his body at all, feeling her heart sink even as she knew she was being silly.  Nothing had changed…  She knew how he felt about her, and Lyle was his godson, it made sense, but… 

            “It’s really something, isn’t it?” Des muttered as he moved up beside her, a suitcase slung over one shoulder. 

            She breathed out sharply, not bothering to deny it.  “Yes.” 

            “My fault, I suppose,” he noted in a quiet tone.  “I knew I was raising ghosts when I named him godfather, but I don’t regret it.”  He peered at her seriously with those deep blue eyes of his.  “He needs more connections to the _now_ , and I knew it would be good for them both.”  He shook his head.  “What so many people fail to realize about Jake is that once he gives you his loyalty, it’s yours for life, no matter what comes.  And when you’ve only ever loved a handful of people in your life, half of which have left you, gaining a new one is…  Well, I think you can see.” 

            _Connections to the present…  Ghosts._ “Ghosts?” she found herself asking. 

            Des pursed his lips, then sighed.  “Jake once told me that his earliest memory is of his mother handing him his little brother, and making him promise to always keep him safe.”  He shook his head.  “Considering how young he was, I’m not sure how much of that is real and how much imagined from what his uncle retold him over the years, but no matter the case, it’s what he believes.  She handed him a newborn and told him to always keep him safe, and then she died… and then the boy never reached his tenth birthday.  Well, at least, that’s what we presume; truth is, Jake literally _lost_ his brother just a couple weeks after the kid turned nine, and in some ways, I think that makes it worse than if he’d ever found a body.  If he had, he would have been able to blame whatever had actually killed him.  As is, instead, every August, he just thinks about how he couldn’t hold onto his family.  His mother’s death, Odin’s death, Junior’s loss…  I’ve known Jake since he was ten years old, and even before what happened in 188, Augusts were hard. 

            “But when Lyle was late and didn’t come until August, I saw an opportunity… and it’s ironic, really, that he has the same birthday as Junior.  I couldn’t have planned for that, but Jake has always felt strongly about symbolism, and with Cassie bouncing back just fine from the birth…  He’s reading too much into things, but I’m hardly going to discourage him.  If he wants Lyle to be his chance at redemption, I can only see good coming of it.” 

            That… really _was_ haunting, in a way.  More importantly, though, it made what she had just seen make sense, and like Desiderio, she could see the good in it.  Mitchell had spoken about Jake not doing well this time of year too, and if they could overlay _good_ important events over the bad… maybe it would be less painful for him in the future.  “I’m glad, then,” she decided. 

            “You shouldn’t read too much into it either,” Des added.  “It’s hardly the same thing.” 

            She frowned, meeting his eyes.  “What?” 

            “He’s coming around,” Des continued implacably.  “His heart’s been there for a long while now, and body too, for all that the man has more restraint than I’d have believed possible, especially for his age.”  He smirked.  “I don’t think you realize just how much you tease him with every glance and touch, Princess.”  She blushed, and he laughed softly.  “No, it’s his mind that’s giving him trouble; paranoia is a double-edged blade.” 

            She forced down the wild surge of frustration that rose at his words.  “He’s being ridiculous,” she snapped. 

            “Oh, without a doubt.  He has a tendency towards extremes of every sort, though, if you hadn’t noticed.”  His lips twitched into another smirk.  “Same as you.”  He only laughed again when she glowered at him.  “Don’t be like that,” he teased.  “It was a compliment.”  Gesturing at the way his wife and Jake had gone, he added, “We’d better catch up before they realize we’ve been gossiping.” 

            She rolled her eyes, stepping forward.  “You are entirely incorrigible,” she informed him. 

            “And I take pride in it,” he agreed happily as he followed her.  “You wouldn’t want me any other way, you know; I could have been a miserable old man with an amazing trophy wife instead of an all-seeing smartass.” 

            She snorted at that, shooting him a disbelieving look, to which he only smiled more brightly in that way that was oh so reminiscent of Lucrezia when she was politely telling someone off.  With that, she couldn’t help it, and started to laugh outright.  

-

***

-

**Toulouse, France**

            …It was an armory. 

            It was an armory, tucked away in what had appeared to be a damned _crevice_ of a freeway overpass in the middle of southern France. 

            Adam’s smile was broad.  “I _thought_ I liked this place,” he declared happily.  Setting down his bag, he opened up a bin against the wall and began to rummage through it. 

            _Okay, so, he obviously didn’t know this was here…_   For all that she usually had no issue stealing from people who collected weapons, this made her a little nervous; usually, she knew who she was taking stuff from, and, you know, when they might come _back_ , so she could hopefully be gone before then.  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” she asked hesitantly.  She felt like a coward for saying it, but…  Well, she’d had a few close calls lately.  It was one thing to take risks, and something else altogether to not _know_ the risks.  “What if the owner comes back?” 

            “Mm, I’m pretty sure this is mine,” he noted without looking up.  He pointed at another container, closer to her.  “If that has grenades in it, then this is definitely mine; it seems like something I would have put grenades in.” 

            Hilde stared dubiously at the big, dehydrated soup tin.  “Seriously?” 

            “This isn’t the first time this has happened,” he admitted.  “I have no idea how many of these stashes I made before the amnesia, but I’ve started taking a closer look when I notice I really _like_ a place.”  He glanced up.  “Does it have grenades in it, or not?"  He frowned.  "If not, maybe…  That.”  He gestured to… a popcorn tin. 

            With a big, jolly Santa Claus printed on it in bright colors. 

            Which was sitting next to a neatly lined up array of assault rifles. 

            Lips twitching, she moved over to the soup tin and lifted the lid.  “They’re here,” she agreed.  Her eyes wandered back to the rifles.  “Can I have one of those?” 

            “Sure,” he returned absentmindedly, closing the bin he’d been going through and opening another.  “I’ve collected maybe twenty since _Libra_ fell anyway…  Should be the same model the Alliance ground troopers used; not as light as what you probably had in OZ, but they’re sturdier, jam less often.” 

            She blinked.  “How many of these places have you made since _Libra_?” 

            “At least fifteen,” he returned in a distracted tone.  “No… eighteen, on Earth.” 

            Which implied he’d been doing this on the colonies too.   _Kinda overkill, but…_  She eyed the little room consideringly.  _Kinda awesome too._   “You have got some weird hobbies, Adam,” she announced after a moment. 

            He snickered.  “My sister says I have the most barbaric packrat tendencies she’s ever heard of,” he noted wryly.  “But she loves me anyway.” 

            “Militaristic hoarder?” she suggested, and grinned as he laughed, even as she noted a yellow sticky note on the floor.  It looked like it had fallen off the shelf next to it, and, curious, she went over to pick it up.  Adam didn’t exactly strike her as the note-taking type… 

 

-

_Trowa,_

_I’m told I’m supposed to tell people when I take their things._

_01_

-

 

            _…You have **got** to be kidding me… _  Scowling, she showed Adam the note, only to frown more when he laughed and went back to his cataloguing.  “Doesn’t it bother you?” she demanded. 

            He shrugged.  “I must have given him access in the first place, which means I was fine with it.  And it’s not like I’m _missing_ anything.”  He snickered.  “I only found this place by luck.  I’m sure, whatever it was, it helped him.” He looked around, focusing on an empty space of wall.  “Actually, it might have been something for Heavyarms.  It would be easy enough to bring a truck in close, so the weight wouldn’t be as much of a problem.”  He shrugged.  “In which case, well, good riddance, I already gave that away, so any … _accessories_ were just taking up space.  Now I have somewhere to put my new stuff.” 

            Hilde opened her mouth to argue – it was the _principle_ of the thing – then closed it, looking around the crowded space… and back to the bags they’d brought with them. 

            He kinda had a point. 

            Well… at least he was practical?  Making a face, she started looking through what was piled on a shelf opposite to Adam, trying to get a feel for what went where before she started to unload her pack.  Though she still took a moment to snap a picture of the damn sticky note and send it to Sally, because _seriously_? 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “ _Oooodiiiiin_ ,” Marlé whined, looking up from the phone to glower at him. 

            He frowned.  “What?” 

            “You _suck!_ ” she insisted.  “How hard is it to write a _note_ to a friend?” 

            He blinked a few times before he put together what she must be talking about, and smirked.  “It seemed like something he’d find amusing.”  However different Trowa was these days, he doubted his delight at blatantly obtuse statements had disappeared entirely.  He tilted his head as another thought occurred to him.  “How did he _find_ it, anyway?”  It had been something Trowa would have thought was funny, but he’d also expected it to never be read; the man who had come to _Peacemillion_ at Duo and Quatre’s behest had had hints of Trowa in him, but Odin was under the impression that if amnesia lasted more than six months it wasn’t going anywhere. 

            “Did he get his memory back?” he asked curiously, stepping over and snatching the phone away from the girl – though, both to his amusement and exasperation, it took three tries before he managed it.  Dropping back to the floor next to her, he unlocked the screen, and glanced up at Duo giving them that same look Quatre seemed to wear so often when watching Marlé accomplish something. 

            Though he supposed, in Duo’s defense, he _had_ almost broken his wrist for trying to play keep-away with a data disk, that one time while they were infiltrating a school.  He’d never seemed willing to believe that it had been an accident. 

            It was a picture of his note, and a comment from Lucrezia, via Sally’s phone, saying that Hilde wasn’t impressed with his communication skills.  Grinning a little to himself, he quickly asked if she was still with Trowa. 

            “You’ve heard from Trowa?” Duo asked. 

            “Mm, only in a loose sense,” he admitted.  “Some of Lucrezia’s people have run into him a few times.  He’s using the name Adam Bloom now.”  The phone chirped, and he opened the text. 

            _‘Yes.’_  

            Grinning, he typed up a quick request for the number.  Adam might not be the Trowa he remembered, but it was pretty obvious by now that there were enough echoes for him to be a competent ally and, based on what Xu had said a few weeks ago, he had a similar sense of humor.  If anything, it seemed to just be more pronounced, now. 

            Not unlike his own transformation, he suspected.  He was curious enough to investigate, at least, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity.  Though… 

            “Do you mind if Hilde knows where you are?” 

            The look he received for the question was surprisingly amused.  “Hilde bitched me out last March for not having invited her to my wedding.  Like I invited _anyone_ , or like I had a way to _tell_ her.” 

            Odin frowned.  “So she already knows.” 

            "Yeah, I saved her hide when she got grabbed by the Regime almost two years ago.  I told her it was okay to tell you and the other guys about me, but not anyone else.” He made a face, not unlike when Marlé bit into something sour.  “I’m _done_ with all the politics and fighting.  I figure I’ll just lay low until the dust settles, and then we’ll see what happens.  I’ve got a _life_ now, and I’m not going to put that in danger.” 

            Marlé beat him to the next question, as the phone chirped again.  “You told her to tell Odin?” 

            _‘076-54-386-543-8794-4.  This should be entertaining.’_  

            Grinning, he typed a quick, _‘Yes.’_ before tapping the number to dial it.  He only considered for a moment, before putting it on speakerphone, just as it began to ring. 

            Marlé blinked, then, putting it together, burst into a fit of giggles that she immediately tried to stifle with her hands.  Duo just smirked and moved closer, sitting cross-legged close enough that their knees nearly touched.  Marlé flopped onto her stomach on his other side and rested her chin on his good leg, watching the screen as the call connected with a rather mischievous smile. 

            He was of the same opinion as Lucrezia, truthfully, and didn’t see how this would really require his own participation beyond arranging the circumstances. 

            _“Hello?”_  

            “Yo, it’s Marlé,” his protégé greeted immediately.  “And dude, you totally _suck_ at, like, communicating.” 

            _“Excuse me?”_  

            “I’m kinda with the kid on this one, Hil,” Duo added.  “Seriously, what the hell?” 

            _“…Kasey?”_ she asked tentatively. 

            “No, it’s the fucking ghost of Christmas Past,” he snarked. 

            _“I could never get him alone!”_ she defended instantly.  _“What was I **supposed** to do?”_  

            “I don’t know, maybe _ask if you could talk to him alone for a minute_?!” 

            There was silence on the other end of the line as she considered that, and Marlé whistled lowly.  “Wow.  And for the record, Odin, like, doesn’t keep secrets from me anyway.” 

            “Too much effort to no purpose,” Odin agreed absently. 

            “And let’s not forget that she’s apparently BFFs with _my_ kid!” Duo snapped.  “Shit, Hil, I was hearing all about your little adventure in some weird forest the day after it happened because she called him up to _bitch about you_!” 

            “That wasn’t why I called!” Marlé protested. 

            “No, you called him because you talk on the phone at least twice every damn day, and have been for _months._ ”  Duo scrubbed a hand over his face.  “Damn it…  You alone?” 

            _“Trowa’s here,”_ she negated immediately. 

            _“Not really,”_ a male voice noted in the background, sounding amused.  _“Who’s Kasey?”_  

            Odin perked up at that.  “Adam, right?  We met back on _Peacemillion_.  I was going by Heero.” 

            “Duo, here,” his old comrade added in a resigned tone.  “Or Kasey, whatever.” 

            He made an amused noise.  _“It’s been a while.  Thanks for clearing some space, by the way.”_  

            Odin laughed.  “I never actually thought you’d find that note, you know.” 

            _“There appears to be a fine line between irrational like of a place and memory,”_ Adam noted happily.  _“Nostalgia leading me by the nose turns up interesting, sometimes.”_   He paused.  _“I hear you chased me through Europe?”_  

            “Give or take,” Odin hedged.  “I saw a glimpse of Xu and recognized your methods, so I thought I was chasing Wufei.” 

            _“Hm. I don’t remember him very well.  Has anyone heard from him?”_

            “No.  But Quatre’s okay, I talked to him yesterday.”  After everything with Wing Zero, it had mostly been Duo and Quatre who interacted with Trowa.  He hadn’t really bothered, himself…  He’d been busy.  And the hesitance in the other man had convinced him that any effort to find his friend in this new stranger was likely pointless. 

            _“Hey!”_ Hilde snapped, and he heard Adam laugh… 

            …He _knew_ that laugh.  Something stirred deep in his chest at the sound… 

            “Why Adam?” he found himself asking. 

            _“Why not?”_   He could practically hear the man’s shrug in his tone.  _“I hear you’re Odin now?”_  

            He smirked.  “It felt right.” 

            _“Mm, alright.”_   A breathy sort of chuckle came through the line.  _“You didn’t really think that would work, did you?”_  

            _“You’re an asshole!”_ Hilde snapped, her voice muffled; evidently, she wasn’t next to the mic anymore. 

            _“And?”_ Adam asked, his tone genuinely curious. 

            _“If you’re not going to give it back, at least put it on speakerphone!  I haven’t talked to Duo in **months**!”_  

            _“Hm.”_   After another moment, the sound quality changed.  _“Though really, I think he was calling for me.”_  

            “I was,” Odin agreed before Hilde could start on something else.  “Do you want a secure phone?  I’m setting them up for the others already.” 

            _“Only if you don’t expect it to be turned on most of the time.”_  

            He shrugged.  “It’s your phone.” 

            _“That’s good, then.”_   His tone was happy.  _“Cathy will like it.  You have the email I gave Sally’s people?”_  

            “I can get it.” 

            _“Give me the details through that.”_   There was a long pause, before he asked Hilde, _“So why didn’t you tell me about Duo?”_  

            “Yeah, I was about to ask that myself,” Duo agreed. 

            She sighed.  _“Because I wanted to check first, what with the amnesia.”_  

            _“I had amnesia the last time we saw each other,”_ Adam pointed out in a mild tone.  _“It stands to reason that he assumed I still did.”_  

            _“You’re claiming to be someone else entirely,”_ Hilde argued. 

            _“…Because I am?  I was never Trowa Barton either, you know.  I was just what was available after he antagonized one of his men into shooting him over the original Operation M.”_  

            Odin focused on Marlé at that, but really, this wasn’t news; with Leia’s help, they had pieced together the Barton Heir’s probable fate – and the girl had been horrified when she found out what the _original_ Operation M had been.  He had gathered that she had fond memories of her uncle, but Leia’s open scorn of him was probably… healthy. 

            Leia and Marie seemed to be the only decent human beings to come out of the Barton family, at least recently. 

            _“I thought you had amnesia,”_ Hilde argued, voice suspicious. 

            _“I thought you just followed me to a stockpile that I shouldn’t have known how to find.”_  

            Marlé started laughing.  Duo grinned as Hilde spluttered.  “Kinda hit or miss, huh?” 

            _“Give or take,”_ Adam agreed.  _“It’s a long way from black or white, at least.  I have flashes, or I know things with no idea **how** , and emotional memories seem pretty exact, but aren’t much use out of context.  Everything physical is there, but even the doctor said it would be, the first time I woke up; the area where you store motor skills wasn’t where I took the brain damage.”_ 

            “Damn,” Duo muttered.  “I hadn’t realized it was that bad.” 

            _“There’s a reason Cathy bit your head off when you first found me,”_ Adam pointed out, tone amused again.  _“I hadn’t been out of the hospital for long.”_   He seemed to hesitate for a moment, before asking, _“How have you been?”_  

            Duo’s smile was bright.  “Pretty good.  There’s been some bad stuff, but a lot of good too.  I’m married now, and have a pretty extended family that claimed me.  It’s a bit like you and Cathy that way, I suppose.” 

            _He’s more talkative, still,_ Odin mused, listening to the conversation with half an ear.  _But then, so am I._   The _way_ he talked, the word choices, they were very different too.  The undertone of the conversation, however, the mood of it, and the lines his reasoning followed… those were Trowa _exactly_ , and the longer he listened, the more comfortable he grew with the idea of befriending the man a second time. 

            He looked down to meet Marlé’s eyes when she double-tapped on his leg with two fingers, and offered her a smile.  Her expression was curious, but concerned, too…  She wanted to know what he was thinking.  _‘Later’_ he mouthed, and she eyed him for another long moment before nodding and sitting back up, reaching for the laptop she had been tinkering on before she’d gotten Lucrezia’s text. 

            She was doing well, really.  For all that he and Leia had laid out a plan for if she was ever discovered and informed Marlé of the details, it had been obvious at the time that she didn’t think it would ever come to this.  Leia had been hopeful, but nearly certain that it would all the same, and had outlined a different set of expectations should she be taken into custody.  The rules had changed… and he wasn’t sure that Marlé had realized it yet. 

            Then again, she had taken the rules into her own hands and effectively swapped the outline he was working with when she had introduced herself to Lucrezia.  The only difference was that he could no longer let her wander on her own when fancy took her; she had to either be with him, or with someone he trusted absolutely. 

            _Good thing I suddenly found myself with an overabundance of those._  He fought the urge to grin as he looked over to Duo, talking more and more animatedly, gesturing nonsensically as he did.  She had found Duo for him _months_ ago – they just hadn’t known it yet.  Now the only one of them still missing was Wufei, and, well…  Wufei had avoided the rest of them even on _Peacemillion_ , let alone before that.  The idea of having a _network_ to fall back on, that included not only Quatre, but Duo and Trowa, Adam?  Lucrezia? 

            It was… _exciting_. 

            So, phones first, and that shouldn’t take them much longer.  After that, there were still a number of Zero drives he needed to collect from space.  He’d need to take a few more trips to America too, but he wasn’t going there without backup, and that was going to require planning, so he could start laying down the groundwork, but overall it would have to wait. Otherwise… 

.           …He really wanted to go find his old passport.  His search on Odin through the databanks in Bolivia had been about as helpful as he expected; for five years, he had been with OZ, and his work had been classified.  He’d left in 179, and his body had been identified in 188 on the colony where he had died.  That was it.  Even his date of birth had been missing. 

            Odin _had_ always preferred to keep his records thoroughly sanitized.  He hadn’t really expected to find something useful, but trying had let him know that any other searches for his father’s information would also be dead ends.  The man had believed in being thorough.  Therefore, his only way to find a lead was to use his _own_ information, and that passport would be the easiest way of it.  He was fairly sure he could go into a welfare office and offer his fingerprints to earn a wealth of information, but he also suspected that that would set off flags of some sort, and he would rather have more to work with before that, incase it turned out poorly.  He doubted it would, but… 

            For all that he wanted to know, he was aware that coming into the open with it would almost assuredly cause complications.  He couldn’t think of a reason why his life would have to change at all, once he did… but it also struck him as something that _might_ change everything. 

            There were too many unknowns for him to feel comfortable.  Finding the passport was the safer option, at least as a starting point. 

            For now, though… there was something comforting about Marlé being in his peripheral vision; in listening to Duo and Adam chatter like old friends.  In Lucrezia being only a few taps away… and that he could talk to her for literally no reason about _anything_ , or ask her to meet with him even if he gave no explanation, just because he _wanted_ to feel her beside him, lose himself in the intoxication of her scent as her laughter vibrated through her skin… 

            …It had been a _day_ since they parted, and already, he _wanted_ that back.  More than he could remember wanting anything in his life.  It was… disconcerting. 

            _Dangerous._   Only, he was having a hard time grasping _why_. 

            Abruptly, he wanted Duo to finish the call, so he could- 

            _No._   Duo had asked that Lucrezia not be informed of his whereabouts.  He wouldn’t call her until they left Amsterdam, and they weren’t going to leave for another couple of days, when they finished the network. 

            …That thought had no right to feel so… depressing. 

            Suppressing a sigh, he moved the phone to Duo’s knee instead of his own and laid back on the floor, head settling next to Marlé – who automatically tipped the screen so he could see it a little better from his angle before continuing to work.  He gave the code a cursory glance, but didn’t bother focusing on it; he’d comb it through properly before they put it to work.  

            She was making good progress, though, taking to his request that she start from scratch on the new system with enthusiasm.  Her memory of what she had done before was good, and she had excitedly outlined the differences she wanted to include because it was a wider network before he could suggest them. 

            After a moment, she asked, quietly enough that the mic shouldn’t pick it up, “Bored?” 

            “Mm,” he grunted in agreement.  He wasn’t sure that was exactly what he was feeling, but it equated well enough. 

            “You could go buy the phones,” she suggested.  “I’m working on this, and it’d look weird if the locals did it then didn’t _have_ them in a week.” 

            That was a good point.  And he’d want to buy from a handful of different places, decently far apart, to not seem terribly out of place himself…  And he needed to do some research; Lucrezia had requested some decently high stats.  Nodding sharply, he sat back up and stood, moving for the door, waving off Duo’s curious look. 

            Coffee sounded good too. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… Thoughts? Review?
> 
> This one was seriously the most fun I’ve had in a damn long time… And Odin and Duo’s reunion is one that’s been in my brain since 2008. And yes, it’s always planned that the 1st thing that comes out of Duo’s mouth is “You’re blonde.” I didn’t realize just how loyal to/protective of Mariemaia Jake was until Zechs scared him this chapter… sometimes, the way that man’s head works is just… stunning. 
> 
> Yay for culminating plots! Finally!


	14. Deviant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zechs regrets his life choices - Odin's too busy making fun of his own to bother with regret, and it's making Marlé want to laugh and cry at the same time. Relena opens her circle of trust a little, though that maybe could have been planned a little better... and Jake is overly intent on procrastinating his self-fulfilled prophesy of doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so we’ve got the first chapter that, on the edit, I actually caved and split – in part because 52 pages is a ridiculous length for a single chapter, but in the end of the day, mostly because there was a major shift in tone and theme partway through, and separating it helped the pacing of the story overall. I had a lot of help from my primary beta, Big Fisch, both for the original work/organization of the monster chapter, as well as now with helping me find a good way to break it and still improve the story.

**_-_ **

**_ Deviant _ **

_\--_

_ All warfare is based on deception _

_but_

_ there are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do. _

_– Francois de la Rochefoucauld_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

-

**September 1 st 198 – Monday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            _“And then we found her calm as could be, having tea in the galley.  She said she hadn’t wanted to **bother** anyone.”_  

            Jake bit the inside of his cheek to keep his laughter contained, then shook his head at Illian when the man shot him a questioning look, moving towards the kitchen.  “Well, think of it this way,” he muttered into the mic.  “She’s showing you security flaws to fix.” 

            _“She’s **playing** with my security,”_ Zechs half snarled.  _“She managed to get a badge off one of my colonels for computer access and **rearranged and renamed** nearly a terabyte of data.”_  

            …He really _missed_ Leia.  She’d always had a flair for creativity that he couldn’t help but admire.  If she’d tried to delete things, she would have probably run into access problems.  That, and they would have called the newer files a complete loss – this way, they knew they had critical data in their files, and had to take the time to _find_ it. 

            _“Then she had the nerve to tell me that it had made barely any sense before, and that she hadn’t been able to find anything worthwhile.”_  

            And because the access code she’d managed to get was fairly high ranking, Jake was pretty sure that a good chunk of those files would be classified; meaning they couldn’t put some grunt to work opening everything and figuring out what it was. 

            _“One of the new primary folders is named **Chartreuse**.”_  

            Jake bit his lip _hard_. 

            _“I didn’t even know what that was.  I had to look up it up,”_ Zechs ranted on.  _“It’s the name of a **color**!”_  

            He’d known that, actually.  He wasn’t sure why and he couldn’t remember what shade it was, but he’d known it was a color.  Grinning broadly, he launched himself up the pantry stairs two at a time and palmed his way into Relena’s office.  The princess wasn’t inside, but he could hear water running in the bathroom; he probably had around twenty minutes before she was ready to work.  _Plenty of time,_ he mused, turning to his desk area and grabbing his laptop before throwing himself on one of the couches. 

            He appreciated the idea of the desk, really, but only in the organizational sense.  He’d never managed to actually stay sat in front of one for more than an hour; even back when he’d had an office in Brussels, his desk had been there more so people had a place to drop papers for him than a functional work surface. 

            He shook his head as the prince continued to vent, listing off a few other incidents in detail.  At first, it had been constant complaints about the people around her, or her accommodations, the food.  Then, having used up the classic objections, she had started to get… inventive. 

            He didn’t have the heart – or hate of his eardrums – to remind the man that it had only been three days.   He knew for a _fact_ that Zechs had only discovered the tip of the iceberg.  He seemed to be under the mistaken impression that he could sate her whims and she’d agree to being a high maintenance prisoner, once she’d had her pound of flesh.  He didn’t seem to understand that those first three days?  Leia was simply _testing the waters_. 

            There had been _reasons_ Dekim avoided seeing his daughter for years at a time. 

            Still, for the sake of everyone who was on a space shuttle with Zechs and couldn’t hang up on him, he continued to listen and make appropriate noises periodically while he wrote up a few documents, organized a couple folders, and checked Hayden’s numbers on the latest crop reports.  He didn’t really expect to find any mistakes – and he didn’t – but it was habit, and it couldn’t hurt to be careful. 

            In so many ways, he felt like he was losing control of the projects he’d started with Relena, and babysitting the results made him feel a little less out of the loop.  He actually hadn’t wanted to give up his ‘personal assistant’ position however much he’d complained about it, but it had been beyond feasible for a while, and, well…  He _acknowledged_ that he had control issues. 

            _Control issues.  If **that** isn’t a fucking understatement…_  

            “Aa, she does that,” he was muttering in a conciliatory tone when Relena came in.  Glancing up at the clock, he raised his brows when he realized that he had seriously burned almost half an hour on the phone since coming upstairs… and Zechs was still going strong. 

            That was…  impressive, even for Leia.  He wasn’t sure he’d _ever_ seen the man this annoyed. 

            The woman had _talent_. 

            “Hey, Zechs?  I’m sorry to cut this short, but weren’t you already saying she did something that was killing your bandwidth?”  Relena frowned slightly, and he rolled his eyes before gesturing at the paperwork on the coffee table, specifically pointing to the things that needed her signature.  “I’d offer to help, but we’re not hooked into the mainframe from here.”  He had designed a security net _far_ better than what the Regime insisted on using when they moved; it had been an excellent excuse to cut ties and make his life easier.  Securing Relena’s work without altering Zechs’ system back when they were in his base had been a nightmare.  “Someone in Brussels should be able to sort it out, if no one out with you can.” 

            The other man made an irritated noise. _“I **can’t**.”_  

            “Uh…”  He raked his brain for some reason for that, and came up empty.  “Why not?” 

            _“She broke into my phone the other night,”_ he seethed.  _“And among other things, replaced the numbers for my direct lines to different departments in Brussels with her local L2 pizza parlors.”_  

            He bit his lip and _shook_ , he was trying so hard not to laugh.  _Yeah…  it wouldn’t look very good if someone found out about that._   And since those were private, secure lines for Marquise’s personal use alone… no one else would know them.

            It would _also_ look a few steps beyond weak to have to own up to just how he’d lost them.  “That’s…” 

            Relena was frowning in concern now.  “Jake?” 

            “I’ll see what I can do about that,” Jake decided quickly.  “I’ve got to go, call you back.”  He’d barely hit the end call button before he started to crack up. 

-

***

-

**September 3 rd 198 – Wednesday – Berlin, Germany**

            Marlé frowned, biting her lip as she considered the pros and cons… 

            “This isn’t an RPG.  There’s no secret treasure if you take a certain path.” 

            She scowled, refusing to look up, tucking her hair back behind her ear.  “That’s _not_ what I’m doing,” she argued. 

            “Then why is it taking so long?” 

            “I dunno, maybe _I’ve never done this_ before?”  She tapped the route she’d penciled in.  “This way has more places for us to hide.” 

            Odin walked over to lean over her shoulder.  “It also doesn’t take us to half of the places we need to go.” 

            Marlé rolled her eyes.  “It’s not _half_.  And besides, your map _sucks_ , a couple of the places you listed aren’t even on there.  You could’ve told me that they were secret bases, you know.” 

            Her brother gave her a very level, ‘Why are you making stuff up?’ look.  “This is _not_ a video game.” 

            “It kinda _is_ when you only give me _part_ of the data!” 

            He made an annoyed sort of noise.  “Which ones are you having a hard time finding?” 

            She rolled her eyes before handing back the list he’d given her when he said she got to try figuring out their route.  It seriously wasn’t half; only three of the twelve locations were circled because she couldn’t figure out where the hell they were.  She’d kinda thought it was a test – you know, see if she could tell when he was bullshitting – but apparently she’d totally read that wrong.  So she just crossed her arms when he reached around her to type up a search for the coordinates, and felt rather smug when he came up with no results, just like she had. 

            “Hn.”  She gave him an annoyed look, and he shrugged.  “Point taken, you win.”  He frowned.  “But I’m not remembering this wrong.” 

            “You’re sure?”  Not that she really doubted his crazy good memory, but…  It was a jumble of numbers and sometimes _something_ had to give. 

            “I lived there for five years.” 

            _Well, there goes that theory._   “What about the other two?” 

            In the end, it turned out that one of the ones she hadn’t been able to find was only on a construction database because it was just an asteroid without any active mining work, too small to be of much value.  The third had been retitled, so it popped up for the coordinates he put in, but hadn’t responded to her search based on the names Odin had given her. 

            Which left the only place where Odin had ever lived for longer than a couple months.  Which _really_ should’ve been easier, all things considered.  “Um… news reels?” she suggested.  After all, it was pretty rare, but sometimes a colony would drift out of its orbit; and it was always on the news, because they had to decide if it was safe enough where it was, or if it needed to be moved back. 

            Odin’s frown deepened as he opened up a page on the news networks and started a search for the colony by name, then froze.  “Oh.” 

            “Huh?”  He hadn’t even opened one of the links – only the URL and the date showed on this screen. 

            “It’s gone,” he admitted, letting out a sigh.  Shaking his head, he shrugged, closing the window.  “Well, at least there wasn’t anything important there.” 

            “What do you mean, it’s gone?”  She narrowed her eyes.  “And didn’t you have stuff there that you wanted?”  _This is the colony he was texting me about while he was in South America, isn’t it?_  

            “It was Wing Zero’s first casualty,” he noted dismissively.  “And it was just a curiosity.” 

            _Uh… Huh._   A handful of space structures had disappeared over the course of the war; she’d known that.  Two colonies, a couple resource satellites, and, if she remembered right, at least one free space station, not to mention the stuff like Barge and the damage caused by battles, or even the debris left from battles where civilian casualties were kept to a minimum. 

            There were totally reasons why space had always been so pacifistic.  Conflict up there caused a _lot_ more problems than it did on Earth, and for all that the planet had been devastated by _Libra_ ’s fall, L1 and L4 were _still_ trying to mitigate the damage caused by ongoing collisions of pieces of the battleship or dolls that _hadn’t_ fallen.  It wasn’t as severe as what had happened to Earth, and they already had a system in place to handle it, but that didn’t make it _not_ a major problem. 

            _But…_   “Wing Zero?”  What did the newer, sometimes hallucinatory gundam have to do with _that_? 

            He frowned at her, then tilted his head.  “That never made the news, did it?” 

            _Ooookay…_   _Because **that** isn’t ominous._   “ _What_ never made the news?”  She’d been lectured left and right about propaganda campaigns and military history in school, so she wasn’t surprised that stuff had been left out, but this…  She _really_ didn’t like where this seemed to be going.  There had been that footage of when someone had gotten the bright idea to take Wing Zero _into_ a colony – _mind-altering, read: people get stupid with it_ – but OZ had chased it back out into space with the Mercurius and Vayeate before too much damage was done.  There was plenty of footage on the net of the dumb thing romping around a carnival like an overgrown robotic kid. 

            Odin tapped the colony name on her list.  “I hadn’t paid attention to which colony it was at the time, but OZ only started to suspect Wing Zero’s existence after Quatre destroyed it.  It went dark, and when OZ went to investigate, all they found was rubble.  Next it was a resource satellite; same thing.  We caught up to him before he took down another colony, thankfully.” 

            She felt her eyes round at the news.  “Quatre.”  _Sweet, kind-eyed, absurdly strong space-heart Quatre… destroyed an entire colony._   Space-hearts were rare, but she knew enough to recognize the signs; her fifth grade teacher had been one, though not half as strongly as the Winner seemed to be.   With how fast and hard he’d reacted to her little emotion surge… 

            _How does he fight **at all**?  Let alone do something like **that**?  _

            Odin’s eyes darkened.  “Zero…  Some people handle it better than others.  But no matter what your affinity, the first run of it is always… traumatic.  Though it can be entirely internalized as easily as real.” 

            She stared at him.  “Did you just say that _everyone_ goes on a psycho rampage the first time they touch the thing?” she demanded.  “I thought it just made people _high_ or something!”  In a crazy sensory brain way, or something, like meth or cocaine, only smart like modafinil and computery like Snow Crash. 

            Not that that didn’t sound stupid dangerous _enough_. 

            He shrugged slightly.  “It’s a good rule of thumb to simply point the pilot at someone you don’t like if it’s their first time with the System.” 

            Her eyes narrowed.  “Did _you_ totally lose it too?” 

            He considered for a moment, tilting his head, before admitting, “In a very focused way.” 

            _Of course.  When is he **not**?_   “What did you do?”  She almost didn’t want to know, but at the same time… 

            “I killed an army.” 

            “…An army.” 

            “Not a very large one,” he reassured in a distracted tone, eyes faraway.  “But the mercenaries I was working with weren’t much help.  They mostly just got themselves blown up.” 

            “An army.”  She took a deep breath.  “What army?” 

            He tilted his head again, looking up for a moment, before shrugging once more.  “It really didn’t seem important at the time.” 

            “…It didn’t?” 

            He gave her an incredulous look.  “ _Mercenaries_.” 

            “ _Why_?” 

            “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.” 

            “Oh my _God_!”  She threw a pen at him – which he dodged easily, grinning.  “You’re not even screwing with me, are you?”  She covered her face with her hands.  “Okay.  So…  Quatre blew up a _colony_.  You took down an _army_.  Zechs did **_Libra_**.” 

            “Duo got an army too,” he pointed out helpfully. 

            “Great,” she deadpanned.  “You’re practically twins.”  He started to laugh.  “ _Anyway-_ ” 

            “ _Libra_ wasn’t really Wing Zero,” he interrupted, still grinning.  “That was Epyon.  Actually, my army thing was Epyon too, but… yeah.  When Sanc fell again, Zechs and I somehow got the idea that we needed to start fighting _each other_ after the battle got called off.” 

            “Uh huh.  Because it seemed like the thing to do at the time.” 

            His grin was downright devious now.  “Yes.  And then I made him trade with me.” 

            “…You what?” 

            “I took his helmet, told him I was taking Wing Zero,” he explained as if it was as simple as going to the store.  “And then I left with it.” 

            “And he just let you do this?” 

            “Well, he didn’t stop me.” 

            She glowered at him.  “Maybe he was still a little bit _sane_ at that point.” 

            He started to laugh outright. 

            “Who _else_ was stupid enough to play with this thing?” she demanded after a moment.  “I mean, I get that you, at least, got it to work _right_ and not hurt anyone you didn’t mean to, but who else _tried_?” 

            He frowned at her, somewhat reproving.  “Quatre and I had no idea before it was just _happening_ to us,” he reminded her.  “And Duo was forced; he didn’t want to touch it after what Quatre did, but they were holding Hilde’s colony hostage until he played test pilot.” 

            She frowned.  “Who?” 

            “Someone with the Treize Faction.”  He shook his head.  “They had the idea that they could figure it out for a while, but after Quatre and I escaped, I think they only tried one trial on their own before deciding they wanted a test subject they didn’t care much about.” 

            Marlé wrinkled her nose.  Sometimes, people really sucked.  “Anyone else?” 

            “Trowa, out of desperation, once.”  He pursed his lips.  “He seemed to get some of his memory back from that.  And Wufei.” 

            “Why did he?” 

            He shrugged.  “I told him to.” 

            She groaned.  “Should I even bother asking why?” 

            His grin was back.  “I thought it would help him get his head together.” 

            “…Please tell me you’re joking.” 

            “It worked.” 

            “Oh my _God_.” 

            He was visibly trying to contain laughter now.  “I thought you trusted my judgment.” 

            “What did he _do_?!” 

            “What he was trying to do?”  He looked confused now.  “And he knew what he wanted when he came back.” 

            …There was just nowhere to go with that.  Sighing, she tried to remember where exactly this conversation had started before Odin took her down the rabbit hole.  Failing that…  “So, no Zero for Quatre, then.  Like, ever.  He’s the one who encrypted all your little drives, so he’ll help us put it all back together, and then that’s it?” 

            Odin frowned at her.  “He’s fine with it now.” 

            …That really shouldn’t have been heart-stopping.  “And when, exactly, was take two?” she asked with dread, trying to remember the date of the other total colony demise during the war. 

            “During _Libra_ ; that was how he countered Dorothy.” 

            _Okay, that makes at least **some** sense._   “So he wants a copy once we’re done too?” 

            To her surprise, he shook his head.  “He doesn’t need it anymore.  He only used it the first time he outmaneuvered Dorothy’s dolls – after that run, he could strategize on that level without activating the System.” 

            _Ooookay…  And that’s even **more** terrifying._   “Can you do that?” she asked warily, just _waiting_ for the next bombshell. 

            “No.” 

            …She couldn’t decide if that counted as a bombshell or not.  On the one hand, at least there weren’t two people with that kind of ability.  _On the other…_   Quatre apparently trumped her brother in more than just art, which was upsetting.  Which, logically, made _no_ sense.  Odin was awesome, and crazy capable of all sorts of stuff, and was, she was sure, still better than almost everybody at plenty of stuff, but not _the_ best at everything; that’d be nuts.  Therefore, there was only one real conclusion she could come to on this news: 

            Quatre was _totally badass_.  In scary brainpower ways.  And empaths might not be in the same league as the crazy sci-fi telepathy crap that didn’t really exist, but that didn’t make them not dangerous enemies.  Especially since the gundam pilot had proven, over and over, that he was fully capable of cleanly, meticulously killing despite constantly feeling his opponents’ – his _victim’s_ – emotions. 

            _…Holy crap, but Quatre’s **scary**.  Really fun, witty, sweet guy…  And also utterly terrifying.  _

            And Odin was giving her a confused, mildly concerned look now.  She flashed him a smile, and looked back to her list; at the name of a place that no one would ever go again.  “So…  This was your home base for Operation M?”  Looking up, she added, “I mean, before it got Quatre’d?” 

            His lips twitched, but otherwise he didn’t comment on her choice of verbs.  “It was.”  He tipped his head to one side.  “Before the retraining, at least.” 

            She frowned.  “Retraining?”  He’d used the word before, but she’d only recently started to realize that he was referring to something specific, not… well, not just some sort of training. 

            Odin just shrugged again, looking away from her and focusing back on the computer screen.  “It wasn’t a good time,” he noted dismissively.  “I try not to think about it.” 

            …Yeah, that was _not_ good – Odin actively _enjoyed_ overthinking every little thing.  She had a theory at this point that it was his way of trying to, like, make everything he did more efficient.  He was downright _obsessive_ about trying to make sure he never repeated the same mistake, and drilled the same logic into her at every turn. 

            _How bad does something have to be for him to actively **not want** to think about it?  _

            “Odin?”  She almost felt like she shouldn’t ask – he’d been trying to get out of talking about it already – but he could always just say so more directly… 

            “Hm?” 

            “What was the retraining?” 

            He went quiet, and Marlé bit her lip, knowing she didn’t want to take the question back, but… 

            “Have you ever been so sad… so upset by what was in front of you, that you couldn’t think?”  He wasn’t looking at her now, just staring off into space. 

            “…A little bit,” she admitted after a moment, “when I landed on Earth.”  He nodded a little in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything.  “I…”  She swallowed.  “It didn’t last very long, though.  You showed up.” 

            He smiled gently at that, though his gaze stayed focused off to one side.  “I know.  That was why I decided to help you.”  He glanced over at her.  “I remembered how that felt.”  He pursed his lips for a moment, before shaking his head.  “I remembered what could happen, if the wrong kind of person found you.  Someone who wanted something from you, instead of someone who wanted to help.” 

            He looked away again before continuing.  “There was a little girl, once, who gave me a flower.  I had just finished planting the explosives to destroy a nearby Alliance facility, and I was taking a little time to myself.”  He smiled a little.  “It was a nice day…  And it was the first time I’d been back to L3-X18999 since my father died.  It was…”  He shrugged uncomfortably.  “It had still been under construction when I was there before, and I knew that, but at the same time, I was amazed at how much it had changed; at how beautiful it had become.” 

            He hesitated, then shook his head.  “I think, on some level, that I decided that meant that I was doing the right thing.  It had been more than five years, and I was back where I had started.  I’d followed my emotions when I accepted Dr J’s offer to join Operation M, and I had a new sense of focus.  I’d mastered things I knew that Odin had never been very good at, like piloting, and…  I believed that trying to liberate the colonies was the right thing to do. 

            “I was thinking about all that, when this little girl walking her puppy came by and asked if I was lost… and when I told her I thought maybe I always had been, she tried to get me to play with her dog.”  He smiled.  “To ‘cheer me up’.”

            He closed his eyes, pausing for a moment before continuing.  He looked far more sad, now.  “I had time before I set off the charges, so I thought I’d try to find the part of town I’d been in before; to retrace my steps.  But I couldn’t find anything familiar.  I think, between the fire and the fighting that was starting back then, that the whole area was rebuilt.” 

            “It was,” Marlé found herself interrupting.  “My mom was a big part of it – we lived there, when I was little.  She was a volunteer at St. Jude’s during the rebellion.” 

            “And she was the first RLTT candidate,” Odin finished for her, nodding.  “Right.”  He froze for a moment, then relaxed as he eyed her critically.  “You left before 194, though.” 

            The way he said it was obviously not a question, but Marlé nodded anyway.  “Mom started medical school just after I turned six, and we left before that, in…” she thought for a moment, “I guess it would have been in 191.  So she went to school, and my grandfather hired Meagan and bought the house on L3-X16512, where the good schools were, for me.” 

            Odin nodded again, his eyes faraway.  “So…  Like I said, I wasn’t able to find anything… and I decided that that was closure. That the past didn’t have to mean anything for the future.” 

            “But what about now?” Marlé protested.  “You’ve said that so much about what you do now-” 

            “I am _not_ an assassin.” 

            Marlé snapped her mouth shut as she stared at him, realizing he was scowling. 

            Odin took a deep breath and closed his eyes, gripping the back of her chair with one hand.  “I will never kill someone for something so…  _pointless_ as money,” he continued in a less harsh tone.  “I refuse to kill another person unless I have weighed my reasons and believe it’s necessary.  I will _not_ be another man’s tool again, and I _will not_ bear more lives on my conscience for any reason other than my own.” 

            He dropped his head down so his hair hid his eyes.  “I don’t understand why my father did it.  I doubt I ever will.  But I know that he regretted his life enough that he wanted to die.  And I know…  I know that if people were just a little less patient, a little less _remarkable_ , I would be dead for the same reason as him.  And if so many of the people I met during the war can be so constant, so forgiving, then no one should have the right to kill a person for something as petty as a paycheck.” 

            Marlé just stared at him, trying to think of something to say.  That was probably the most riled up she’d ever seen him get… and what he’d said _hurt_ too.  It _said_ a lot of things about what had happened without actually saying them… which was very Odin-like, really. 

            Swallowing hard and licking her lips, she nodded a little to show that she understood, before tentatively asking, “What happened in 194?” 

            His grip on her chair tightened and he brought up his free hand to cover his face before speaking.  “I miscalculated something.  I never found out if it was because I was distracted with the past or if I didn’t have all the information I needed, or if it was just bad luck… but when I blew the charges, part of the base toppled into a series of apartment buildings.  Those complexes toppled outwards into those near them, and then again…”  He took a deep breath, still hiding his face.  “In the end, nearly three blocks of the neighboring residential sector collapsed.” 

            Her stomach sunk down into her toes.  _Oh, Odin…_   She stood and threw her arms around him.  _He’d have been what, fourteen?_   Just a year older than her. 

            He didn’t react to the hug, but she held on anyway as he continued in the same flat tone.  “I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl from earlier; she was young enough that she couldn’t have been far from home when I’d seen her at a park near the base.  I knew what I would find, but I couldn’t stop myself from searching.” 

            He stopped and she squeezed him tighter, before he finally said, “I found the dog.” 

            The way he said that, his voice so _flat_ …  She felt tears well up and shut her eyes before they could make it out. 

            “Her hat was there too, and there was rubble all around.  I _knew_ , but…  I couldn’t stop thinking that it was the dog’s blood I was seeing, that there wasn’t enough to be hers.  That she’d gotten away, and I just had to find her.”  He stopped again, and she could feel a slight tremor start to run through him as he swallowed hard.  “I searched for hours.  It wasn’t until J sent someone after me and they asked what I was doing that I even realized I’d been carrying the dead dog the whole time.” 

            Slowly, almost like he didn’t remember how, he brought up his arms and wrapped them around her, leaning a bit of his weight against her.  They just stood there for a bit, and she thought that was going to be it.  But then, after a minute or so, he started talking again. 

            “When Dekim heard, he wanted me cut from the program.  That that sort of… weakness… was unacceptable.  I was… glad.  I didn’t care that I was in so deep that being removed from the program meant dying.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what Odin had always said, about how you couldn’t live with regret, and to follow my emotions, and all I could think was that there wasn’t a way I _could_ live with that kind of mistake.  “So I thought it was alright, if they wanted me dead.” 

            Marlé realized that _she_ was shaking now, and that her face was wet, even as she pressed in against the fabric of her brother’s shirt.  Her grandfather had said he wanted Odin _dead_ … and he hadn’t argued?  She fisted the back of his shirt in her hands, suddenly understanding why her mother had always shown so much loathing for the man…  Because right now?  If he wasn’t already dead? 

            She had never felt such _hate_ for anyone, anything, in her life. 

            “But Dr. J convinced him to drop it,” he continued in a quiet voice.  “He said he could… fix me.  Retrain me to not feel so much.  Promised that I would be the best pilot they had ever had by the time he was done. 

            “By the time Operation M was about to start…”  He shifted his weight, almost like a shrug.  “I still wanted to die…  But I’d gotten it into my head that I couldn’t, so long as I still had orders to follow.”  He rested his head on the top of hers.  “And then everyone I met…  They all wanted me to live, even when I gave them every excuse not to.  And after a while, somehow, it got to be okay again.” 

            Marlé tried to speak, but couldn’t; her throat was clogged.  Sniffing hard, she tried again.  “I’m glad,” she managed to choke out. 

            She felt more than heard his little chuckle.  “Me too.”  He ran one hand up and down her back the way her mom would, and she started to cry in earnest at the reminder; then relieved that he didn’t stop as she started to wail in earnest. 

-

***

-

**September 5 th 198 – Friday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Noon**

            Hayden jumped when Lin threw the door open, and he knew he wasn’t the only one.  The normally easygoing bodyguard had his eyes narrowed, and to his dawning horror, he immediately focused on _him_. 

            “What’s wrong?” he demanded, trying not to stutter. 

            Lincoln’s eyes swept over Illian and Carlisle, and his scowl deepened before he stepped further into the room and made a sharp gesture towards the door.  “Out.”  They scrambled to obey him, and he kicked the door shut as Hayden frantically tried to think of what he could have _possibly_ done to get this reaction. 

            …There was _nothing_!  This didn’t make any sense, and Lin was _never_ like this, so how- 

            Just as abruptly as he’d burst into the surveillance room, the older man relaxed, slumping his weight back against the door.  “Okay.” 

            _…What?_  

            He stood back up straight, his normal attitude back in place.  “So, real quick, what I need from yo-” 

            He stumbled forward, arms flailing, as the door was slammed back open as Mailin barreled in.  “What are you _doing_?” she snapped, even as she flung the door shut again behind her.  Then she blinked and smiled and Lin, who was scowling at her as he leaned against the table, having caught himself.  “Oh, hey!  I thought I was doing this part.” 

            The lieutenant rolled his eyes as he stood up straight again.  “Lies,” he noted in a wry tone.  “You’re a lying liar who lies.” 

            The Australian woman’s pale gray-green eyes _sparkled_ as she eyed him, taking up a thinking pose.  “Mm,” she considered.  “I thought I could get it done faster?” 

            “Better,” Lin allowed.  “Conceited, but better.” 

            She snickered.  “I’m good at better.” 

            _Oh crap._   This was another of the major’s ploys.  He’d avoided getting too deep in her last few attempts to rope him into something crazy, and he’d thankfully managed to miss the strip poker incident _entirely_ , even if Vaughn said Dorothy owned really racy underwear – he hadn’t _wanted_ to think about that! – but now she was targeting him _directly_.  And she already had Lin going along with it – which, to be fair, usually happened pretty early in – but once he joined? 

            She had _momentum_. 

            “I’m not doing anything!” he found himself yelling.  It came out more squeaky than he hoped, but considering the fact that he was surprised he’d managed to say it at all, he figured that had to count for something. 

            Mai snickered, and then she was suddenly _across the room_ and pinning him to the wall, a hand over his mouth.  “Not so _loud_ ,” she ordered conspiratorially.  “You’ll ruin everything.” 

            “She’s lying,” Lin noted casually. 

            “It would be really annoying.” 

            “Well that’s more likely, at least.” 

            Hayden knew he was turning red, listening to them bicker about _nothing_ with the major’s _very female_ body pressed up against him.  He, along with most of the household, was fairly convinced that the two of them were casually sleeping together; but since no one had actually _caught_ them yet and nobody wanted to ask, he just tried to not _think_ about it.  But now Lin was locking the door, and Mai was focused on him again – though he knew if he’d tried to break her hold while she was talking, even with the tricks the colonel had taught him, he wouldn’t have been able to escape. 

            Major Mailin Marrakesh didn’t lock doors.  That was how half the crap she did got out of hand, she _never_ kept any part of her life private, but if _Lin was locking the door_ - 

            “No one’s clothes are coming off!”  _Really_ not what he’d meant to say, actually… 

            Mai frowned faintly.  “You’re so uptight, you know that?  Would it really hurt to relax a little?” 

            “I’ll scream rape!” 

            “What exactly does he think is going on here?” Lin demanded in an incredulous tone. 

            “I will!” 

            “Seriously?”  She actually looked perplexed. 

            “Oh, _shit_.” 

            “I don’t get it,” Mai decided. 

            “He thinks this is a sex thing!” Lin hissed, his ears burning red. 

            “Well there’s an idea…” 

            “Christ, let the poor kid go, look at him!” 

            “How was I supposed to do anything without letting him move, though?” 

            “I’m sure you could think of something if you tried.” 

            She raised one brow, looking between the two of them, _still_ pressing him against the wall.  “He’s the one who brought it up.” 

            “You’re _torturing_ him,” Lin protested as he stalked across the room and tried to pull her back. 

            She snickered and let him, shaking her head.  “You’re no fun.” 

            “And you’re psychotic,” Lin informed her in the same tone as he might report the weather as he brushed off Hayden’s shoulders and straightened out the creases that had started to form in his shirt.  “Calm down.” 

            “We need some of your crazy computer magic on the sly,” Mai announced. 

            Lin’s face twisted in an odd expression.  “Could you maybe just… leave?” 

            The woman pointed at him, a disapproving expression on her face.  “That’s hurtful.” 

            “So I need you to loop the office feed for at least a fifteen minute cycle, good enough to fool anyone,” Lin continued, completely ignoring her.  “No one should end up looking, but it needs to either be a decent spoof, or a hell of an accident in here that would explain a massive data loss including the surveillance up there.” 

            Hayden scowled, shoving the guy back.  “Why?” 

            “Because we need to have a private conversation.” 

            Hayden rolled his eyes, not believing it for a moment.  “Uh huh.  There’s nothing capable of picking up audio in the Princess’ office, and the cameras in there aren’t at any angle you can read lips from.”  Not to mention the fact that the cameras were only turned _on_ when she had guests from outside the compound. 

            “But do I actually _believe_ that?” Mai asked ponderously. 

            “I installed every piece of surveillance equipment in this house,” Hayden retorted.  Not even Jake knew where they all were.  The colonel could guess at most from taking an occasional turn in the guardroom, but he’d also asked for secondary equipment that could be activated in an emergency that had a different set of angles. 

            No one needed to know about those, though.  Not even the colonel knew where or even how _many_ of those devices were installed. 

            Lin grimaced.  “I still need the cameras off.” 

            “To talk.” 

            “…Yes.” 

            Hayden rolled his eyes.  _Yeah, sure._   Now that he knew that he hadn’t actually screwed up, he felt a lot more confident.  “Where’s Jake?” 

            “Elsewhere,” Mai informed him in a chipper tone as she settled her weight back against the desk by him.  “And he should stay that way for another forty minutes, so hurry up.” 

            He scowled at her.  “Do I come into _your_ office and mess with you?” 

            “Ooh, but you _should_.” 

            “You don’t _have_ an office,” Lin cut in, rolling his eyes.  “Look, we’re low on time, just cut the feed and I’ll make it look like some sort of accident.” 

            “ _No_!” Hayden defended, spreading his arms protectively in front of his screens.  “ _Not_ okay!” 

            Lin’s eyes squinted in annoyance.  “I already told you, we-” 

            “Just use the Princess’ suite,” he continued, cutting the lieutenant off.  “There’s no active equipment in there, and I’m sure there’s plenty of shit for you to get-” 

            “Ideas!” Mai interrupted with abrupt enthusiasm.  “He has them, I told you.” 

            Lin just rolled his eyes again, grabbing Hayden’s arm.  “Fine, come on then.” 

            This, at least, he’d practiced enough times that he broke Lin’s hold almost instinctively.  Well, and lieutenant wasn’t nearly as distracting – _terrifying_ – as the lady major.  “I won’t tell anyone!” he promised as he launched himself at the door handle – which was thankfully the type that always opened form the inside, locked or not – and made his escape. 

-

***

-

**Alexandria, Egypt**

            “Hi.  I got an email saying there was a package waiting here for me?” 

            Eliza blinked then smiled at her customer.  She almost wanted to take a picture of him; her mother kept insisting that men with long hair just weren’t classy, but this one?  The ponytail made him look… _cultured_ , instead of rebellious.  He was wearing jeans, but with the crisp white shirt he wore rolled up to his elbows, he gave her the impression of an aristocrat taking a casual day, instead of a punk.  Someone you wouldn’t feel worried about bringing home to meet your mother. 

            “Name?” she asked chirpily. 

            “Katriel Dimardin.”  He leaned casually against the counter, and somehow, that made her feel even _more_ comfortable talking to him.  “It should have been sent from Rotterdam.” 

            “Alright…”  She opened up a window for her inventory and started to type in the city – she didn’t want to embarrass herself trying to spell his name – and quickly found it.  “It arrived just this morning,” she agreed.  “You’re quick.” 

            His smile was a real winner too.  “I try.” 

            “Can I see your ID?” 

            “Of course,” he returned, taking it out of his wallet and handing it over, and she only checked to see that it was the same name as what was on her computer before handing it back. 

            “Just a minute,” she murmured, going to the back of the store.  It didn’t take her long to find it; the box was pretty big, but not too heavy.  Not light, but not books either.  Nothing rattled as she shifted it in her arms, so whatever it was, it was well packed.  “Okay here we are,” she announced as she came back to the front desk and set it down before handing him her clipboard.  “It’s all set and paid for, but I need you to fill this out for me before I let you take it.” 

            “Mmhmm,” he grunted agreeably, picking a pen up off the counter and doing as she asked, resting the board against his box to hold it still.  “This is a nice system,” he noted after a moment.  “At first, I thought I’d have to get a P.O. box, but I’m only supposed to be in the area for another couple of weeks.” 

            Eliza nodded understandingly.  “We hear that a lot, these days; after the Fall, more and more people aren’t keeping truly permanent addresses.  This usually ends up being a good compromise, I think.  We just have to have a card on file for if the recipient never shows up, and we can charge to send it back to a default address the sender listed.” 

            “It’s nice when you can keep things simple,” he agreed as he signed his name with a flourish.  “Thanks.” 

            “Have a nice day!” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Relena’s Suite**

            Relena frowned as they came in, locking the door behind them.  “Hayden?” 

            Lin scowled and gestured at Mai.  “That one’s on her.” 

            “In my defense, whatever is going on?  I don’t think including Hayden was one of your better ideas.” 

            Lin just grimaced.  “Yeah, in retrospect, he doesn’t do so well with stress.  Let alone Jake-induced stress.” 

            Jerome frowned.  “This is about Jake?” 

            Relena grimaced.  “A little.” 

            “It’d be hard to _not_ have it be something to do with him,” Mai noted.  “He’s got his fingers in just about everything Relena even _thinks_ about.  So unless this is an attempt to throw him a surprise party, it’s got to be pretty fucking serious if we’re talking knowledge he doesn’t have.” 

            “Serious, yes,” Dorothy agreed, eying the major critically.  Relena couldn’t help but agree with the other noblewoman as she nodded thoughtfully; Mailin had shed her usual humor like a coat she no longer needed.  “The details, however, have an unfortunate serving of speculation.” 

            Mai shrugged.  “If that weren’t the case, I assume we would be _doing_ something instead of discussing it.” 

            “Point,” Olivia agreed.  Shaking her head, she announced, “We have maybe half an hour before Delilah Osborne arrives, and perhaps twenty before Jake makes his way home, if we are lucky.” 

            “He’ll be out longer than that,” Rome negated.  “Cassie has him in her clutches, and they’re shopping.  We’ve got probably three hours before they get back, and then the Noins still have to pack.” 

            “But Mrs. Osborne has a reputation for being prompt, if not early,” Olivia reiterated. 

            Relena nodded sharply, pursing her lips, before simply shaking her head.  “I’m not sure where to begin.  Lin?” 

            Lin made a face, and sat down on the edge of Relena’s bed.  “Well, let’s start with the biggest.  Treize is totally _not_ dead.” 

            “ _What_?” Olivia demanded harshly. 

            “Ooh…”  Mai crossed her arms.  “That… _wickedly_ complicates things.” 

-

***

-

**Paris, France**

            If she didn’t know better, Priya would think both men were deliberately trying to _play_ with her.  Realistically, she could acknowledge that it was just an instance of intelligence and due caution, but _seriously_ … 

            Odin Lowe’s trail had vanished _completely_ after he’d made it across the English Channel, and despite her sitting for a week watching for the slightest twitch from any of the feelers she had on him, she had nothing.  He’d turned into a ghost the same way Katriel had after Macedonia, and she’d been ready to buy herself a tall whiskey in recompense for her failure. 

            Then, suddenly, a flag she’d left on Katriel Dimardin’s accounts – a different one than had been used for the Skyview Suites, but still definitely _his_ – popped up back in Egypt.  A short flight from where she had _been_ , before chasing after his friend in the west. 

            She had the distinct suspicion that as soon as she started chasing Katriel, he’d vanish again too.  And then maybe Odin would pop back up on the map in _South Africa_ , just to switch things up. 

            At the same time, however, Odin was just a distraction; Katriel was the entire reason she was dashing around Europe to start with, and after a couple of years of no activity at all, he had _no_ reason to suspect someone might try to trail him.  She had checked to be sure before starting, but the name Katriel Dimardin had never come _close_ to being identified as an alias of Quatre Winner by _any_ government, despite the capricious way he would use it then allow it to simply collect dust.  Of course, presumably Watau Enterprises was handling its sedentary periods… 

            Come to think of it, this fancy footwork of his was probably annoying Permilla as much as it was her. 

            She sighed and shut her laptop, starting to pack her things back up.  Whatever she speculated would happen next, the fact of the matter was that she’d been dead in the water before this lead, and while she’d consider just ignoring Odin Lowe’s movements in favor of a hunch, she couldn’t do the same for Katriel.  Whether he was actually Quatre Winner or someone who had stumbled upon the right papers to make use of them, she was here because they _needed_ that confirmation, one way or another.  Whoever Odin was, there was a good chance that even if she caught him, he might have no idea who Katriel Dimardin was, in false _or_ real terms.  Spending the night under the same roof implied friends over business accomplices, but really…  This was a lot of speculation and guesswork. 

            _Nothing for it,_ she decided grimly as she started shoving things back in her suitcase.  _If this goes on much longer, though, I’m bringing in Tay, whatever Freddie says._  

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia – Afternoon**

            Cassie sighed as she hugged him, resting her weight against him for a moment.  “Don’t wait for the apocalypse before you come visit again,” she muttered sullenly into his shoulder. 

            Jake huffed a sigh back at her as he returned the hug.  “I’m totally over doing that sort of thing, promise.” 

            “And the princess would have your guts for garters if you tried.” 

            “And Relena would have my guts for garters if I tried,” he agreed, amused in spite of himself. 

            “You need to get off your behind and _talk_ to that girl.” 

            “That’s not the greatest idea,” he argued back mildly.  Kissing her crown, he stepped back and took her hands.  “It’ll work out soon, though.” 

            Cassie rolled her eyes, and Des snorted, but neither of them tried to argue the point further.  They’d made their opinions clear – though Cassie, at least, didn’t have even _half_ of the full picture – and at this point, they’d agreed to disagree. 

            Instead, Des stepped forward to hug him as well.  “If you see my daughter before me, you make arrangements.  I know the house is being watched, but now that we’re back in touch, you can play middleman: if you ask me to come somewhere, whatever the circumstances, I won’t ask questions.” 

            “If I see her first,” Jake agreed, returning the hug tightly.  “Same thing in return, yeah?” 

            “I’ll come up with some excuse or other,” Des assured him as he withdrew.  “Take care of yourself, and don’t be a stranger. 

            “You too.  Drive safe.” 

            “Will do.” 

            He stayed outside long enough to watch their car leave the winding driveway, then sighed, turning and walking back into the house. 

            He still couldn’t completely make up his mind about what he needed to do next.  The Noins’ visit after his own vacation had allowed him to put it all off, but even with the much needed break… 

            His options still looked really fucking bleak.  He’d almost picked up the phone to call David at least three times this week for advice – before remembering that the other man’s opinion was already damn set in stone, and he wouldn’t actually _listen_ to him.  Which made him pissed off all over again.  And even more furious with himself for thrashing the other man for _his_ opinion.  It only went downhill from there. 

            He just…  needed to follow through.  He’d talk to Relena, and- 

            He sighed as the Imperial March started up on his phone, and Vaughn frowned in confusion at him from the desk in surveillance before starting to laugh.  Jake rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket, debating if he was actually in the mood to deal with another of the prince’s bitch fits.  He’d called no less than _four_ times over the past week to vent about all the problems the Barton Heiress was causing, and frankly, most of his amusement over it had faded before the end of the second.  He stuck his tongue out at his driver and silenced the ringer, before frowning.  “Where’s Hayden?” 

            “Came out of here like a bat out of hell about two hours ago, while you were out with the Noins,” Vaughn explained with a grin.  “Yelled something about having ‘nothing to do with it,’ and I’m pretty sure he left the compound before he called me and asked if I’d take the rest of his shift.  He wouldn’t explain, but I read between the lines enough to realize it had something to do with the major.” 

            Jake snorted as he flopped into the chair next to Vaughn, setting his phone on the desk.  He’d considered trying to reel the woman in a few times, but honestly, her antics were frighteningly calculated to turn the atmosphere of the compound into more of a home than a base, so unless something illegal seemed to be going on he was inclined to leave her be.  He’d pulled her aside after the poker incident and made it clear that any claims of harassment would be taken seriously, and the _look_ she’d given him had made it clear that she wasn’t _that_ stupid.  “Anyone find the collateral yet?” 

            “Not yet.  Not sure if she changed her mind or if it’s just a slow burn, though.” 

            “Make sure you lock your door before you go to sleep tonight,” Jake advised, tipping his head back.  He made a face as his phone started ringing _again_.   _Zechs…_  

            “Like that would stop her.”  He raised his brows in surprise when Jake flipped the phone over on the table, muting it again without picking up.  “Do I even want to know?” 

            “I’m pretty sure _I_ don’t,” Jake noted.  “And it’s not that she couldn’t get in, it’s about making yourself a less appealing target than those around you.” 

            “She’s made it pretty clear that she thinks choosing her victims by that principle is discrimination.”  He pursed his lips.  “You don’t ignore Relena like that.” 

            “Relena doesn’t call me to whine like a Jewish housewife every day.” 

            Vaughn rolled his eyes.  “Wow.  I can’t believe you just said that.” 

            “Only because you don’t think I’m serious.”  He frowned, glancing up at the screens.  “Where _is_ Relena?” 

            “Apparently free time means beauty time, and Dorothy arranged to have a spa relocate to her house for the afternoon,” the other man noted, grinning.  “They left maybe thirty minutes back, with Lin, Mai, and Osborne, and then the maids tagged along too.”  He bit his lower lip.  “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hayden spazzed because Mai tried to move it to _our_ house, and he thought she’d force the issue if he didn’t escape.” 

            “Sounds feasible.”  He sighed as the phone started ringing _again_.  “Damn it.” 

            “Maybe you should see what Darth Vader wants?” Vaughn suggested, grinning.  “I’m starting to get curious.” 

            He tapped the phone in the other man’s direction.  “ _You_ can answer, then.” 

            He quickly tapped it back.  “Hell no.”  He frowned.  “Why’s he whining?” 

            “He’s being hazed,” Jake announced after a moment, staring at the device, seriously debating if the man would try calling a fourth time, or if he’d just leave a voicemail. 

            “Hazed?” 

            “Hazed by an _artistically_ vengeful aristocrat,” Jake confirmed.  “Treize style.  You don’t turn Leia Barton’s life upside down and expect to get away with it; even Dekim was known to catch a flight if he heard she was coming to town.  That woman is beautiful, tenacious, and if you set her off, she’s just as vindictive as every other Barton that’s ever drawn breath.” 

            “…I can’t decide if that description was awesome or… gruesome.” 

            Jake tipped his head back, grinning, as his phone _finally_ stopped ringing.  “That’s the beauty of it.” 

            They sat in silence for a few minutes before Vaughn asked, “Do you have an excuse planned for why you’re ignoring him when he asks, later?” 

            He closed his eyes.  “What are you talking about, I left my phone on my nightstand again.” 

            “Ah, right.” 

            “I’m _terrible_ with cell phones.  Keep forgetting I even own one.”   He sat back up to meet the other man’s eyes.  “I have a long history of this problem.  It might as well be to my advantage for once.” 

            Vaughn started laughing a deep, genuine laugh, and Jake relaxed into the sound.  He was aware of the fact that he’d been doing little _other_ than relax for three weeks now, but at the same time, the tension never seemed to go away… and _damn_ but it felt good to just let go.  Vaughn didn’t know enough that meant he had to work to hide from the daredevil.  He could spend a little while just sitting and bullshitting with his men; camaraderie was important.  He’d been away, letting Lin and Rome – Mai had been something of a happy accident, in terms of her taking the reigns all the damn time – take over for him.  And for all that he had originally groomed them to do exactly that, it was… 

            It was upsetting to come back and realize that they had all slid together perfectly _without_ him to orchestrate it.  They didn’t need him anymore, which filled him with enough pride that he thought his chest would burst, but at the same time… 

            …It meant his time was running out.  And this time, the satisfaction of finishing a job so well wouldn’t even come close to eclipsing the loss of this life. 

            _That_ … that had never happened, before now. 

            No one like _Relena_ had ever happened, before now. 

            On the bright side, knowing her, there was a good chance she’d forgive him eventually.  He imagined it’d take a while – it had taken him almost a year to realize that she had _never_ forgiven her brother for sending her away, let alone for the destruction he’d caused – but eventually, he was fairly sure she would at least be willing to be his friend again.  This spark of theirs would probably have disappeared by then, and she would have moved on and probably be seeing someone with at least a tenth of his baggage, but…  He could live with that. 

            Probably. 

            “Boss?” 

            Jake’s head snapped up; he hadn’t realized that they’d stopped talking.  “Mm?” 

            Vaughn’s face was concerned.  “You okay?” 

            He tipped his head to one side at that, giving the question real consideration.  “Well, I’d better be.”  It was a done, sealed deal, really.  That was what made the situation so fucking depressing: he was living on borrowed time, and had been for a while.  The only thing left up in the air was _when_. 

            Realistically, it would be best if he forced the issue, made his own timeline, and resigned.  Walked away before she could actually burn him, and let her find out through some means that she might not immediately connect to him.  He’d been thinking about that a lot lately, trying to work out the details and come up with a kink-free plan.  He’d come up with a few solid ideas. 

            The problem was, while it all sounded good in his head?  He just couldn’t _do_ it.  He’d started insisting to himself that it was because if she realized he’d just left for reasons she would no doubt put together over time, there was no way she might take him back as a friend down the line; Relena appreciated honesty.  She forgave people with time, but he’d still rather make the least amount of ripples for her to consider in the long run. 

            She… she had changed, lately.  Sometimes she was clear as glass, and other times… he was starting to wonder if he was only seeing one of the mirages she directed at her peers.  She’d encapsulated his own policies more thoroughly than he would have ever imagined possible…  And in some ways, it was that adaptability, that changeable strength, that made her so…  So… 

            Powerful.  Ideal.  Dangerous. 

            Perfect. 

            …In the end of the day, it didn’t matter.  Whatever excuses he came up with to feed his dying ego, he wouldn’t leave any sooner than he was forced because for all that he had enjoyed his time away in Tivoli, each day without the woman had been cripplingly empty.  Then somehow, coming back to his own damn house, seeing her again but not being as heavily involved because the Noins were still a distraction had made it even _worse_. 

            And he _knew_ , had known even before they managed to settle into their routine again… being so close he could smell her on everything he owned again, of sleeping just a few yards away but knowing it was impossible to get closer…  It was going to hollow him out even further. 

            And he still couldn’t let go. 

            It was so idiotic it made him want to laugh until he cried, but damn it, he couldn’t stand to do anything but drink in these last drops for as long as she was willing to allow it. 

            “I am so fucking whipped,” he groaned aloud, leaning forward and dropping his face into his hands.  This was seriously a few steps past pathetic, but damn it, it was what it was. 

            He wanted to talk to David.  He could apologize, and-

            A melodic tune made up predominantly of violins started up on his phone, and he groaned again, even as he reached for it.  He wouldn’t ignore this one, for all that, considering the timing, he was pretty sure he knew exactly what it was about.  “In my defense,” he started as soon as the line connected, “I didn’t think he would go tattle on me if I ignored him.” 

            Relena sounded exasperated.  _“How long has this been going on?”_  

            “A week.” 

            _“He’s only **had** her for a week,”_ the princess protested. 

            Jake frowned; the context no longer worked.  “He’s been complaining since he got her, but I think I missed something.” 

            _“You fail at recognizing my brother’s boundaries,”_ she continued playfully.  _“She’s broken him.”_  

            He resisted the urge to laugh.  “That _is_ pretty sad.  I thought it’d take at least two.”  He frowned.  “How broken are we talking?” 

            _“He wants to be shut of her,”_ Relena explained, still sounding entirely amused, though there was an underlying irritation as well.  _“And apparently she’s made it clear that **you** are the only acceptable option.”_   She snickered.  _“Did you know that your phone number is the **only** one she left be on his phone?  He had to look mine up.”_  

            He started to laugh helplessly; that certainly explained a few things.  “Not in that much detail,” he admitted.  “That sounds like her, though.” 

            She giggled.  _“I’m not sure if I’m going to love or despise this woman.”_  

            “Oh, I know you,” he teased.  “It won’t matter what you think of her: you’ll want _lessons_.” 

            Vaughn and Relena both got a good laugh out of that as Jake grinned and shook his head.  “So…  He’s bringing her back?” he asked once the giggles had mostly subsided. 

            _“Oh no,”_ Relena chirped in a dangerously sweet tone.  _“He’s much too busy for that.  And of course, he can’t possibly spare the kind of guard he’d need to simply **send** her to us.  She might escape, you understand, if she’s not with someone **beyond coercion**.  Which somehow doesn’t include **anyone else in his empire**.”_  

            Jake groaned even as he started to chuckle again under his breath.  “Please tell me he’s willing to negotiate.” 

            _“If he was, he lost the urge when you didn’t pick up your phone five times in a row,”_ she added in an innocent voice. 

            “Four times,” Jake corrected.  “And what the hell would I have said if I’d suddenly answered after he’d already tried twice?  Give me an hour or two to theoretically find my phone and let him cool off, and I’ll try talking him down; I’m not sure how to even _begin_ extricating you enough from the current politics for a trip of that magnitude.”  It would take at _least_ ten days to get to Zechs’ fleet, based on their last position.  “He might be more willing to listen to me.” 

            _“How did Noin fall for such a **chauvinist**?”  _

            “He used to hide it better,” Jake adlibbed, though he was fairly sure it was accurate.  Most military men _were_ a bit misogynistic, to be honest; even having capable women alongside them didn’t help, as most could tell themselves that their female comrades were the exception to the rule.  “And he’s a lot more neurotic than when he was a teenager.”  Softer, he added, almost under his breath, “He doesn’t really have a reason to _try_ , anymore.” 

            Relena sighed, sounding exhausted.  _“Right.  Of course.  I’ll just head home, then.”_  

            “No, stay,” he argued.  “Have some fun and relax.  I can’t really start to work on it for another ninety minutes at least, and even if I can’t get him to compromise, you don’t have anything going that a few extra hours now would fix, if we really have to pick up and go at his whim like this.” 

            _“Jake-”_

            “You deserve some spa time,” Jake continued, overriding her.  “Take tonight, and let me try and work my magic.” 

            She huffed at him, but she sounded grateful at the same time.  _“Thank-you.”_  

            “Whatever you need,” he assured her.  _Whenever you need it,_ he finished silently to himself.  A thought occurred to him.  “Real quick, though?” 

            _“Mm?”_

            “What did she _do_?” 

            The giggles returned, and he could hear other women laughing in the background as well.  He felt his eyebrows raise as Relena actually attempted to explain a few times, but only got a word or two in before sputtering back into helpless crying laughter.  He shared a worried look with Vaughn. 

            _“Hi, Colonel!”_ Mai announced in an absurdly chipper tone.  _“Let’s just say that he won’t be appearing on vid screens for a while.”_  

            He felt his stomach drop as something close to hysteria bubbled out in the form of yet more laughter.  In reality, he wasn’t sure if sobs might not be more appropriate.  Despite the years of wearing the mask and having convinced the majority of the population that he had some major deformity, the tall royal had always been vain.  Specifically, he had always been absurdly vain about his _hair_.  “Did she manage to dye it?” he demanded. 

            _“Bleach, actually,”_ Mai negated happily. 

            Vaughn frowned.  “He’s… already blonde?” he noted in a questioning tone. 

            Mailin snickered.  _“ **Lots** of bleach.”_  

            “ _Orange_?” Jake demanded, trying to imagine it.  Most people who hadn’t had a bad dye job didn’t know it, but if you kept stripping hair after you’d run out of color, it would turn nigh fluorescent on you. 

            “How would you get that past him?” Vaughn argued, skeptical.  “It kinda has to set a while.” 

            _“ **Powdered** bleach.  Lemon scented.  Mixed in his dry shampoo.”  _

            Jake choked.  Both powders were a must for long-term space travel.  Water rations were a constant annoyance, and the less fluid brought onboard, the less weight you had to account for.  But… 

            _Fuck_ , but he’d actually teased Zechs before about his fruity shampoo powder smelling like an obsessive woman’s kitchen.  The unscented was honestly anything but, so on some level, he could understand.  The prince had always insisted that it was subtle, and covered up the scent of ‘deep sweat’ better; he’d always insisted he couldn’t get the sweat smell out of his nose on long trips, and all the other scents sold in the powders were too feminine.  Jake had long since decided that whatever the other man thought he smelled was more psychosomatic than anything – he _knew_ his sense of smell was more sensitive than the other man’s, and they always had enough wet wipes to stay clean even if it was a solid five days between opportunities to wash their hair. 

            That, and he would forever maintain that jasmine was an androgynous scent.  If someone as badass as his uncle could pull off a damn jasmine lime cologne, cocoa jasmine powder really couldn’t go down as girly.  It just made him smell like cookies, and seriously, there were worse things.  If anyone other than Zechs disagreed with him, they hadn’t had the nerve to say it to his face.  

            But…  _fuck_ , no wonder he was pissed, this was a single shade shy of _poisoning_.  Powdered bleach didn’t activate until it got damp but, well, sweat happened… and Zechs had always dashed a touch of the water he got for teeth cleaning over the top of his head to get rid of the frizz after all the oil was absorbed.  Then, with how much pain that Jake knew he was regularly living with since _Libra_ , some of which was nerve-based, and the fact that he was damn sure the man was taking prescription painkillers on a regular basis?  It might have taken an embarrassingly long time for him to realize there was a reason he was having a shitty day. 

            And the burns…  _Fuck, how much of his hair would have just **fallen out**?_  

            On the other end of the line, Relena had apparently gotten control of herself enough to take back the phone.  _“I’m sorry,”_ she apologized breathlessly.  _“It really isn’t funny, it sounds horrible and you can **tell** he feels wretched, but it’s just so ridiculous!”_  

            _Yeah…_   That summed it up pretty damn well.  “I’m not sure how much ground I can get him to give if his scalp is seriously covered in bleach burns,” he ground out after a long moment.  Depending on how bad it was, they might actually run him through a dose of Remalene over the next week or two. 

            _“I know,”_ she agreed in a tired, miserable tone.  _“It is what it is; if he’s going to pull crap like this, there’s not much we can really do, in the end.  Just…  Try, okay?”_  

            “You got it.  See you later tonight.” 

            _“Ja.”_

            Jake sighed again as he disconnected the call, meeting Vaughn’s eyes with a tired expression.  “Shit.” 

            “You really weren’t kidding about the whole vindictive part,” his soldier noted, his expression caught between incredulity and horror. 

            Jake scrubbed a hand through his hair.  “In her defense,” he explained, “She probably thought he’d realize something was wrong and wash his hair within an hour or two.  Zechs is just really good at getting stubborn about ignoring little discomforts.  Most people never would have been able to stand wearing his mask every day for years on end.  Think of how uncomfortable a motorcycle helmet is, even a nice one, after a few hours.” 

            He grimaced, rubbing a hand over his face in memory even just thinking about it.  “Right.  Crazy tolerance.  Still, wouldn’t that _burn_?” 

            “Get used to ignoring enough things, and you’d be surprised how many pain responses just get lost in the mix.”  _And if he’s still taking any opiates, the effect would be compounded._   Shaking his head, he gestured at the desktop.  “Upload Lena’s schedule to the house server again, just to be sure it’s up to date: I’ve got homework.”  He might as well have a good handle on what points he had to fight for before he talked to the prince. 

            “You got it.”  He spun back to the keyboard, and Jake was standing to leave when the driver started to snicker.  He glanced up and noticed his superior’s gaze before shrugging in response.  “You said it earlier, but…”  He shook his head.  “Nail on the head, Boss.  You are _totally_ whipped.” 

            Jake rolled his eyes and casually flipped the other man off as he walked out, making him laugh harder. 

            As if he needed the confirmation. 

-

***

-

**September 6 th 198 – Saturday – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Devil’s Den**

            Duo blinked and reflexively wrapped his arms around Karina as she dropped more or less into his lap with a rather gusty sigh.  “Hold me,” she demanded belatedly. 

            He smirked.  “Long day?” 

            She wrinkled her nose in an adorable fashion.  It would have been more adorable if her face wasn’t flushed and blotchy, though, and he frowned as he shifted to check her for a fever.  Rina rolled her eyes but didn’t try to stop him, though she snuggled deeper into his chest.  “Long week,” she admitted after a moment.  “Day’s technically been okay, so far.”  Sighing again, she relaxed fully and rested her head back on his shoulder.  “It just needs to be next week.” 

            A few pieces finally clicked a few pieces together.   _Ah._  “What anniversary would this have been?” he asked quietly.  

            “First date,” she replied without hesitation.  “I was terrified. I worried I’d maybe read him wrong, you know?  But…” 

            “But he changed everything,” Duo agreed. 

            She made a face again, sniffling.  “That’s just it though.  He didn’t…  I even started to regret it, after a couple months when the Slingers came out higher up in the power hierarchy.  And after that, when I decided I needed to play him, everything got a lot scarier.”  She let out a soft sob.  “I was so…”  Another cry, louder this time.  “What was _wrong_ with me?” 

            Grimacing, he reached up to cradle her head against his chest.  “You were scared.” 

            “How could I _do_ that to somebody?” 

            “You were fourteen and terrified, and everyone fucks up sometimes,” he reminded her.  “It’s okay.” 

            “It’s _not_ okay,” she argued, her voice thick with tears. 

            “Luc decided it was okay, and that’s all it takes,” he insisted firmly.  “He wouldn’t have traded his time with you, with Renee, for anything.” 

            “We don’t even know if she’s his,” she whispered hoarsely.  “I never even _told_ him I didn’t know.” 

            Duo closed his eyes for a moment.  “He knew.” 

            She twisted so she could glower at him.  “Don’t make shit up, Kay.” 

            He steeled himself again.  “He knew, Rina.  He knew you were pregnant as soon as you did.  He didn’t know _who_ until after you’d made up your mind, but he _knew_ , and he didn’t _care_.  He loved you, and he really believed that Renee was the best thing that had ever happened to him.  He didn’t _care_ that there was a chance she wasn’t his blood; she was _his_ from the moment she was born.” 

            The little blonde threw her arms around his neck as she began to cry in earnest and he just held her, running his hands alternately over her back and through her hair.  And if he shed a few tears of his own while she got it out of her system, it wasn’t anyone’s damn business but their own. 

            She was doing better, at least; the last time she’d come looking for a shoulder to cry on had been on Renee’s first birthday, almost three months ago, and everyone had gotten a bit weepy, really. 

            …They were _all_ going to be a mess when December came around again.  But it had been about nine months since the riot now…  And, well…  All in all, he thought they were doing pretty good. 

            He opened his eyes again when Karina’s sobs had turned to whimpers, and found Melissa standing in the doorway watching them with a forlorn expression.  He offered her a tired smile, and she just shook her head, padding softly the rest of the way into the room.  Rina didn’t protest when his wife lifted her legs up so she could settle on the couch next to him, just curled into a tighter ball after the other woman settled, her knees to ‘Liss’s belly, then again to grasp her hand when the brunette wrapped one arm around Duo’s back and settled the opposite on Rina’s hip. 

            _Yeah,_ he decided as ‘Liss rested her head on his shoulder, and he turned to kiss her crown.  _We’ll be okay._  

-

***

-

**September 7 th 198 – Sunday – Munich, Germany – City**

            _“Mitchell.”_

            “Heya, Dave,” Mu greeted as she walked away from the store where she’d bought the little burner.  “It’s your ex calling.  Got a minute?” 

            The colonel barked out a laugh.  _“Like I would ever have been stupid enough to let you get away,”_ he rebuffed.  _“I’ve always got time for you_.” 

            _Safe to talk, then._   David even had a secure line – vetted by Váli, he said.  “I don’t know,” she mused.  “You seem to have pretty weird ideas when it comes to relationships.” 

            _“Ouch,”_ he complained.  _“You haven’t dealt with too many drama queens, have you?”_  

            She rolled her eyes.  “I’ve heard from a reliable source that they’re bad for your health.” 

            Her friend just sighed.  _“I maintain that he’s never done that to me before, and I **royally** fucked up.  If Relena hadn’t been there when she was, the worst he’d have done was physically toss my ass on the curb; and so long as I made it clear I’d follow his rules, he’d have let me pack my shit up first.”_   A pause.  _“And I probably could have talked him out of getting rid of me while I packed.”_  

            Mu frowned.  “I was under the impression that the only reason you didn’t get up close and personal with the local ICU was because Relena _was_ there to separate you two.” 

            _“It’s… more like she cleaned up after herself,”_ David corrected.  _“God help him, but Lena is easily the best thing that’s ever happened to that asshole and everyone near him, so I’m not going to blame her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”_  

            She snorted.  Anyone with _eyes_ – and lived with them, at least, they were very circumspect in public – could tell how deeply those two were intertwined with their bizarrely hands off love affair.  She’d given up trying to sort out where the colonel ended and the princess began after her third week working with them, when she realized that neither of _them_ seemed to know either. 

            And both were also doing their damndest to pretend that their little unrequited angst act _wasn’t_ what was really going on.  It was simultaneously the makings of every teenage romance story and the cause of the first time in Mu’s life that she had been tempted to _actually_ bang her head on something. 

            She hadn’t been able to help herself when Dorothy asked her if she wanted in on the pool for when those two would just get their act together and make out.  Dorothy was optimistic enough to already be out of the running as of last week, but if they stopped being idiots inside the next three weeks or so, she should be closer to the mark than Olivia and be able to score money off both the nobles. 

            Then again, she might end up joining the ranks of the rest of the staff that had already lost out that ‘wished to remain anonymous’ and just wanted to be put out of their misery months ago. 

            Wrinkling her nose, she asked, “What _did_ you do anyway?” 

            David groaned.  _“Called him Váli.  I’m pretty sure neither Lin or Lena recognized it as a **word** , let alone a name…  But technically I blew his cover in front of the woman he’s gone native for right after he threatened me for even **thinking** about breathing a hint of it to her.”_  

            Mu stopped walking and closed her eyes for a moment, processing that, taking a few deep breaths… 

            _“…Mu?”_  

            “Were you ever intending to tell me that my boss was a supporter?” she demanded in a level voice.  “That he was, you know, the guy _you_ report to?” 

            “ _Seeing as he’s refused to report to **anybody** , including Lena, since January?  No, I really wasn’t.  I put you in there because you fit the criteria of what Lena needed short-term, you provided an out if Jake wised up and came out of his little ball of angst, and because there’s enough testosterone in that house to set off a God damn bomb.”  _

            God, but there really _was_.  And Mailin didn’t exactly set the bar very high herself.  “Seriously?” 

            _“In my defense, I didn’t know about the Major when I put your paperwork through.  I really thought you’d get on great with Lena; that you’d get to be friends.”_  

            _We **are** friends,_ she wanted to shout at him.  She _did_ like the princess, and she knew from the frequency of the times the girl sought her out specifically meant that Relena liked her too.  Typhoon Marakesh just had literally no comprehension of _boundaries_ , and as far as she could tell, the Princess loved the troublemaker like a _big sister_.  Even if she’d had the _energy_ to compete with the major, trying harder to be a part of the girl’s life would be so outside of her personality that it would be obviously unnatural. 

            _“Do you want to be reassigned?”_ he asked tiredly. 

            Mu sighed.  “Maybe,” she admitted.  At the same time, though, it _was_ a good position in a to die for posting.  She agreed with Relena’s ideals to a T, Jake was an amazing commander when he wasn’t busy being the damn boogeyman, and she’d just barely settled in.  The guys were all pretty cool, and even though Mai drove her up the wall periodically, damn her, even _she_ liked the woman.  _Maybe she’s spiking the coffee with something, because I’ve officially lost it_.  “I don’t know,” she temporized.  “Ask me next month.” 

            _“Well, I can always use you over here, if nothing else,”_ he offered.  _“That won’t change.  It’s much higher risk, though.”_  

            “I’ll think about it,” she promised.  She wasn’t a diplomat, after all, she’d earned her rank in the infantry; but she wasn’t good enough to fight herself out of practically any corner either, the way Mitchell could.  _The way Mai could_ , she couldn’t help but bemoan.  The green-eyed yet still distinctly Asian minx was the sort of Amazon that birthed legends, or something. 

            Sometimes, it was _really hard_ to not hate her on sheer principle. 

            _“Alright, well…  just let me know.”_  

            She recognized a dismissal when she heard it.  “Stay safe,” she returned. 

            _“You got it.”_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …Anyone not already pick up that Jake was Váli? Or figure out where the hell Priya came from? 
> 
> Comments really mean a damn lot, especially when covering this many points, and finally getting through story arcs that it feels like we’ve all been waiting for. This chapter was really a treat, mixing a lot of humor with some very serious shit – more of the same in the following chapter. 
> 
> Next up, more Duo, and Jake and Lena finally get over their bullshit. And let’s not forget to embarrass Zechs along the way!


	15. Veracity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo has a surprisingly constructive meltdown that's maybe spurred on by old rivalries with Heero, and the Peacecraft siblings have tea. Jake eats cookies, reunites with Leia, then has the rug pulled out from under him... and he and Relena finally hash out their problems with each other like sensible adults - or maybe it's more of a playground screaming match, depending on one's perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two of the original Chapter 14 made off with the original title – it fits better here with all the secrets coming out. 
> 
> \--  
> Edit:  
> \--
> 
> Mostly just grammar - I'm kinda dismayed by how many typos were in this. Otherwise, Jake's thoughts are shifted slightly to reflect the earlier changes in Survival, but that's just in mild wording... Otherwise it's the same. It just took a while to bog through, especially after deciding to split this into two chapters after all. 
> 
> Ugh, now I'm going to have to change all the chapter notations in my notes... And maybe /again/ later if I split another of the monster shapters, I forget which one is 64 pages... But I honest to God have over 95 typed pages of notes - about half of which is in size 10 font, in columns and color-coded, with the margins eliminated. and another third is in the same format except full page instead of columns. Because otherwise, I lose details.
> 
> ...fml.
> 
> Enjoy!

**_-_ **

**_ Veracity _ **

_\--_

_ Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty. _

_– Nathaniel Hawthorne_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**September 7 th 198 – Sunday – Regime Fleet**

            Leia stayed perfectly still as Zechs came into the room, her expression neutral, hands clearly visible.  She was more than willing to admit that things had gotten out of hand absurdly quickly.  She had been aware that she was pushing it a bit hard and fast… 

            But she hadn’t meant for _this_ to happen. 

            “I _am_ sorry,” she spoke softly after a moment, when he didn’t say anything.  “I swear to you that as a physician, I take my Hippocratic oath very seriously.  My intent was to irritate you, not harm.”  She hadn’t anticipated that he might be so stubborn as to refuse to wash his hair once he realized a prank had been played.  She had even checked the ship’s water tables before following through with the idea, made sure that there was an excess for him to take advantage of, and even went to the trouble of allocating that excess to the dictator’s personal use and setting a box of baking soda on his bathroom counter, once he’d finished with his morning routines. 

            She suspected, in all seriousness, that it was only because he recognized those gestures after the fact that he had not had her charged with attempted assassination or conveniently tossed out an airlock while she ‘attempted an escape’. 

            Peacecraft – and wasn’t _that_ name ironic? – didn’t respond as he closed the door behind him and approached her, and Leia carefully didn’t look up to meet his eyes.  She had no idea just how furious he was, but all the same, she didn’t want to do anything at this point that he might interpret as defiance.  If he was truly close to the edge, it was best to play to predator/prey drives, and make it clear on a subconscious level that she was submissive and no threat.  And if he was not so far gone as that, the gestures couldn’t hurt; perhaps he would take them as genuine contrition, or at the least, understand her sudden respect for his dominance.  He had been very firmly in control the entire time, after all; she had simply taken advantage of his lax attempts to appease her in order to rile him. 

            But now she had pushed too far, and instead of irritating him to the point that he was willing to pass her off, she had made it instead more likely that she would be looking at the inside of a far more stark prison cell with no communications or amenities for quite some time.  She thought herself lucky, really, that he had only had her assigned room stripped of everything but shampoo and food before locking the door and barring any passage in or out, instead of throwing her in the brig.  She knew for a fact that there was more than one cell unoccupied, right now. 

            She jumped slightly when he dropped something on the table in front of her and glanced up reflexively.  He was healing rather well, at least; he must have begun a Remalene regimen, to be seeing this fast of a turnaround.  _Good._   She swallowed, meeting his eyes and letting him see the sorrow in hers, hoping he didn’t misread the self-hate, her disgust with herself, that she had done this to him – to _anyone_.  She may have fallen in love with a soldier, once upon a time, may appreciate what they did and be glad that her daughter was learning to protect herself, but Leia had never been able to bear the idea of physically harming another person.  Her father had called it a weakness, but had already had plenty of reason to dismiss her before that came to light, and so had been saved any of the…  _corrective measures_ she had seen him put Trowa through when she was a little girl. 

            She was so glad that Marie had gotten away from him before the sadist thought to crush what he would have seen as weakness in her amazing, compassionate little girl. 

            _“Leia?”_  

            She jumped again as the voice came from _beneath_ her instead of from the man’s mouth, and belatedly realized that it had been a phone that Zechs dropped in front of her.  Unsure, she tried to glance down at the device without looking away from her captor.  

            _What should I say?_

            And irritated expression flashed across the tall blonde’s face and she flinched reflexively as he scowled and stepped back, storming back across the room and slamming it behind him. 

            _“…Hello?”_   The voice asked, sounding confused.  _“Zechs, come on, put Leia on.”_  

            “He left the room,” Leia whispered.  After a moment, it occurred to her that the speaker might not have picked up the noise clearly.  “Hello?” she returned tentatively, eying the screen.  It had gone dark, dormant, but it looked like the same model as Zechs’… 

            _“Hey, Leia,”_ the man on the other end greeted in a reassuring tone.  _“You okay?”_  

            _I’m scared._   She’d pushed things well beyond limits; that meant that Zechs was allowed to push back twice as hard, with just as much recrimination, and she didn’t know him well enough to understand his boundaries.  Her father had liked to offer her someone to console her just long enough to relax, before he’d come back to not only take everything again, but hurt whoever he had allowed to think was overlooked. 

            They were so fortunate that Marie had never recognized their moves, the periods where she was left with nannies for years at a time, as her grandfather’s attempt to hurt them.  Her beautiful, adaptable child had never thought to question why her mother couldn’t go to school and even live on the same _colony_ as her at the same time until Leia had told her this last year. 

            “Who is this?” she asked softly, trying to decide if she should touch the phone.  She had been too locked in her head to look at Zechs’ hands; it would serve her right if he tried to return the favor with something harder to detect than bleach, and leave it on something she was expected to touch and not think to immediately wash her hands. 

            A soft chuckle.  _“It really has been a while, huh?  Did you break his caller ID too?”_  

            The voice _was_ familiar, but not one she could immediately identify.  But then, most of her friends weren’t finished going through the throes of puberty, the last time she had had any contact…  so it could be anyone.  She bit the inside of her lip, debating what to do next. 

            _“Okay…  It **has** been a good eight years.  Knowing you, you probably won’t be sure of me unless we’re at least on vid conference, but whatever you did to Zechs’ system is still killing his bandwidth, so you’re just going to have to wait for confirmation that I’m me until I get there next week.  I’m glad you remembered my advice about hydrofluoric acid, though.”_  

            _Jake!_   His voice hadn’t changed _that_ much really; just an increased dimension of depth.  The cadences of speech were right for him.  She almost burst out crying, though whether from stress or relief she couldn’t be sure.  “You’re coming?” she asked quietly after swallowing hard a few times. 

            _“In full promenade,”_ he agreed, his tone wry.  _“We head out tomorrow – tonight, for you.  The princess isn’t sure whether she’s impressed or worried by how quickly you pissed off her brother, but she’s looking forward to meeting you.  You’ll like her; she’s like a more genteel, politician version of Lu.”_  

            Leia started to giggle hysterically as she realized it really _was_ him, and then…  “That sounds a little daunting.” 

            His tone was smug.  _“And impressive, right?  You’ll be on even ground.”_   He paused for a moment, but didn’t hesitate for long before asking, _“Marie’s safe, right?”_  

            She took a few deep breaths before sighing and nodding, though she knew Jake couldn’t see her.  “She’s in good hands.”  She didn’t doubt that her daughter would soon be hip deep in Sally Po’s operation, but she had expected that to happen eventually.  She’d never been _against_ it, per se; she had just wanted to prolong the amount of time she _wasn’t_ exposed to actual guerilla warfare. 

            Amusingly, Odin was teaching her all the things that she knew Jake would have, given half a chance.  And Odin, at least, had proven to have a gentle hand when it came to teaching; Jake, she hadn’t ever seen try, but when she had last known him, the boy had had far more edges than Odin. 

            Though really, she suspected that Odin only lacked a lot of Jake’s edges because Marie had already had six months to buff them out before they stumbled across her in L5. 

            _“Glad to hear it,”_ Jake told her, seeming to let out a sigh.  _“I assumed, and the reports of how little traces there were of them in your apartment were some reassurance, but-”_  

            “But confirmation is always a balm,” she finished for him.  Really, she liked Jake; she always had.  The Khushrenadas had practically adopted him when Catalonia had grudgingly allowed the nine-year-old into the Specials, and he had been in the periphery often, those months when she and Treize had first pursued each other.  When they had met again in 188, both she and Treize agreed that Jake was the obvious choice of godfather for little Marie.  Granted, they hadn’t expected him to run off and go feral for a year, but even with that, she hadn’t considered anyone else.  If she had died – _died like **Treize** , would that never stop aching? _– she hadn’t wanted Marie to be left to her family.  She hadn’t doubted that her father would immediately disappear with the child if he saw an opportunity – _like he **did** , right under my nose!_ – but they’d made sure the legal paperwork was entirely in the young assassin’s favor for a number of reasons. 

            Primarily, though?  If Mariemaia was orphaned, she knew Jake would stop at _nothing_ to take her somewhere safe. 

            _“I **looked** ,”_ he continued, his tone frustrated. 

            “I know you did,” she reassured him.  “She’s safe, and happy.”  The idea that he hadn’t been trying had never occurred to her; Dekim had only had her daughter for a bare _month_ before the Regime had struck his group, and she _knew_ that Jake must have had a hand in that.  Her little girl had just been clever enough to escape in the confusion.  And then, almost immediately, Odin had taken her under wing and protected her from everyone indiscriminately. 

            She didn’t blame Jake for not being able to successfully track _Heero Yuy_ , especially when he didn’t even have the first clue that he should even be _trying_. 

            _“Good.”_   He sighed.  _“That’s good, at least.”_  

            She grimaced.  “Not much else is, at the moment,” she agreed, catching the sentiment. 

            _“I’m coming,”_ he reminded her.  _“But I need you to **promise** me you’re actually going to behave until then.  I’m not sure what will happen if you don’t, and I don’t want to find out.  You’re on damned thin ice right now, Leia.”_  

            “I _know_ ,” she half whispered, the enormity of it striking her again, a deep weight sinking down in her pelvis again.  “I didn’t think-” 

            _“No, you didn’t,”_ he cut her off hastily, but his tone wasn’t sharp.  More… hurried.  Like he didn’t want to risk her finishing the statement, because he wanted to fill in the details himself and expected her to follow his lead. 

            And she knew why.  He needn’t have worried that she would say something over a _phone_ , she knew better than that, but it _had_ been almost eight years since they had really talked.

            There was something wrong with the self-denounced prince.  She had purposefully mixed the bleach in strongly enough that it would very quickly irritate; she had expected him to be infuriated that she had upset his routine, and possibly made him look like a vain fool in front of his men.  There was no healthy explanation for how he hadn’t _noticed_ the chemicals on his scalp until evening, until he had _second-degree burns_ , his hair coming out in clumps. 

            It was, however, a relief to realize that Jake must already know.  He wouldn’t be worried about her revealing information over the phone, otherwise. 

            She closed her eyes again.  When he was here, when she was safely in his custody and they could talk freely, she could ask.  “Tell me what I need to do,” she asked plaintively.  “I…”  She realized she was about to start crying again, and tried to hold it back, but ended up letting out a rather obvious sniff instead.  “I didn’t want to _hurt_ him, Jake.” 

            He sighed.  _“I know you didn’t,”_ he reassured her.  _“And I think he’s convinced now too, but I really do need you to promise me that you’ll accept your house arrest with grace until I get you off that boat.”_  

            “Of course I promise,” she agreed immediately.  “I was already planning on that.” 

            _“I thought that’d be the case,”_ he admitted readily.  _“And so long as you hold to that, then the worst that’s going to happen is a little isolation.  No net, no outside communications, but he’ll let you have the phone you wrecked, as entertainment.  As soon as we hang up, I have to take it off the network, and if you destroy it, that’s it.  He’s locking you in; you have to ration your own water and everything.”_  

            “Okay.”  She could do that.  It would be a little dreary, but she still had her needlework in here, and pen and paper, and the games on the phone weren’t too bad; the device itself was really more of a tablet than a true handheld.  The only thing that she really wished she had more of were- 

            _“Any books you want me to download before I go?  If you tell me what the hell you did to his bandwidth, I might be able get you a few tv series too.”_  

            She grinned even as she wiped the tears from her face.  “I do have an author or two I wouldn’t mind catching up on,” she admitted.  “And I’d be curious if you had anything to recommend.”  She hesitated for a moment before adding, “I have torrents running in the background for about thirty popular shows.” 

            He groaned, before subsiding into laughter.  _“I’m not sure whether I should congratulate you on learning to code well enough to pull it off, or tell Zechs he needs to fire the programmers he brought with him.”_  

            “I’m not sure he brought any,” she admitted.  “But I used a few tricks I learned from a professional.”  Technically it had been Marie who taught her, full of enthusiasm, but trying to teach her mother had been a secondhand lesson in practice from Odin. 

            To be fair to Odin, Leia couldn’t manage it remotely, the way her daughter had shown her; that part hadn’t made any sense. 

            _“Okay, tell me where they are so I can do it fast, and I’ll see what I can get to you while I claim to still be solving the problem.”_  

-

***

-

**September 9 th 198 – Tuesday – Turin, Italy**

            _“-confirmed twelve dead, with another five in critical care.  However, there are still over twenty students missing.”_

            Hilde made a face.  “Why are you still watching that crap? 

            Adam glanced over at her, blinking out of his reverie.  “I want to know the motive,” he adlibbed. 

            “They won’t release that until they’ve dragged out the sensationalism for another five hours,” she pointed out dryly.  “And then they’ll just drag the kid’s family through the mud, like it was somehow _their_ fault.  Seriously, there are better ways to get your news.”  She eyed him critically for a moment before adding, “Even on your fancy new phone.” 

            He grinned at that, pointedly twisting the sleek device about so the light glinted off it and offering her a very satisfied look.  Hilde just snorted and shook her head before turning away from him to focus back on her tablet. 

            Still, he turned the down the sound.  He hadn’t so much been watching it as staring at nothing, waiting for a change in the text while he considered the implications. 

            Initially, he had assumed that this would be yet another terrible incident that the Regime pushed under the rug, like the riots in the east or the blatantly ignored labor strikes and human trafficking reveals that no one but the privileged seemed to get offended about.  This, though…  As Hilde said, the media was having a field day with it. 

            Was it intentional on the government’s part?  A way to make the passing of some new security bill easier to swallow?  Or was the media just getting more free reign than usual, with both Peacecrafts away?  

            Or, was this one of those things that people tended to panic about, consequences be damned?  He had _thought_ he had a pretty good grasp on sociology, but every time he thought he’d run out of things to learn, he found a new puzzle. 

            Adolescent violence was hardly a new trend; technically speaking, the last war had been an extreme case of that, considering how young all sides had recruited.  The fact that it was a school?  No one had kicked up much of a fuss over OZ attacking the Sanc palace while school was in session. 

            He supposed that might have been because no students had died, though. 

            In any case, a fifteen-year-old punk had gotten a bomb from somewhere, and gone to school.  Or maybe several bombs; either it was several, pointedly placed ones, or one very sloppily powerful homemade one that likely went off on accident.  The jury of public opinion was still out.  But he couldn’t help but think that for either instance, if that kid had been born just a few years earlier?  OZ would have already snatched him up and claimed him a prodigy before pointing him at their enemies. 

            Or the Alliance.  Or a splinter cell of a rebellion.  Or a roving band of mercenaries that wasn’t above adopting small children. 

            You know, the usual types. 

            “What’s your take on all this?” he asked Hilde curiously. 

            She shrugged without turning back around.  “People suck.  Shit happens.” 

            _How appropriate._   It sounded like she was of the same mind as him.  He supposed there was a reason he hadn’t tried to lose her when she started following him. 

            Well, not yet, at least. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “Hey…  What do you two think of getting a GED?” 

            “Awesome?” 

            Nolan, however, narrowed his eyes and dropped his book bag on the floor.  He could see where this was going.  “Universities don’t like them.”  And one way or another, he was _determined_ to get into a university someday. 

            “Universities don’t like them because people tend to get lazy and quit with them,” Kasey argued in an easygoing tone.  “What they _do_ like are overachievers with real life experience.” 

            “That’s grad school, not Uni.” 

            “The only reason I didn’t ask before was because I wasn’t sure I could do it,” Amos butted back in.  “I don’t want to go to Uni, but having a diploma makes a big difference, right?” 

            “I need top scores and extra-curriculars to have a half decent shot at a scholarship,” Nolan continued, ignoring his friend.  His dad and sister wouldn’t put up with Kay ruining his future no matter what the fears, but he knew the guy well enough to realize he needed to make his case and make it well, here and now. 

            “I learned everything from the basics of physics and chemistry through electrical engineering and thermonuclear in under a year,” Kasey pointed out in that same cheerful tone.  “How hard can it be to teach you two?” 

            Aaaaand his brain crashed to a halt.  “What?” 

            “You can go a lot faster, when you’re working one on one,” he explained amicably. 

            “You haven’t been to school since you were _eight_ ,” he argued.  “I heard you tell Melissa.” 

            “School, no.  Education, though?  I got a _lot_ of that.” 

            “You can’t even write up a basic document!” 

            “In _Dutch_!” he snapped immediately.  “English, German, or Japanese, I’d have been fine!  Thank you _so_ much for letting that one slide under the rug, _boy_ , way to be the bigger man like you promised.”  He scowled.  “How many people outside of this country _speak Dutch_ , huh?” 

            _Japanese?_   “You’re from L2, why are you fluent in Japanese?” 

            Kay glowered at him.  “The same reason I’m fluent in ten other languages and can speak five more, one of which was **_Dutch_**!  Someone originally from Belgium was with the program and G took masochistic glee in seeing what he could manage to jam in my head!” 

            “Okay, yelling means it’s time for me to step in,” Melissa announced with a sigh as she came out onto the landing from the loft.  “Duo, he doesn’t know enough about you to realize he’s being an ass, and he _certainly_ doesn’t know what Operation Meteor demanded of its pilots.  Most MS pilots aren’t required to know how to even maintain their suits, let alone build a damn gundam from maybe an hour of flipping through the blueprints.” 

            “Wow, seriously?  _That’s_ how you’re dropping the bomb here?” 

            Melissa just smirked and rolled her eyes.  “Boom,” she deadpanned. 

            “Seriously?” Amos breathed. 

            “No way,” Nolan argued in disbelief, even as a few things started to make sense. 

            “Yes way,” his sister scoffed.  “Even if I’d thought he was lying, Dad recognized him and went all fanboy the first time he saw him.” 

            “Holy shit!” 

            “Language!” his father shouted. 

            “What did I just say about yelling?” Melissa muttered plaintively, raising her brows at Nolan until he swallowed, before turning to glare back at Dad, since he was apparently in the loft.  Shaking her head, she gestured for them to follow her.  “Come on upstairs, boys,” she murmured.  “Story time.” 

            “Wait,” Amos protested.  “If he’s really…”  He looked to Kay for confirmation, who nodded, before blurting, “Is Odin?  I mean, that’s why Marlé knows all that crazy hacking and parkour stuff, isn’t it?” 

            Kasey smirked.  “You know how good she is at all that?”  His eyes flicked to Nolan even as Amos nodded. 

            Biting his lip, he did the same.  He knew that the little girl who liked to follow Amos around was technically out of high school already, but she was obviously from big enough money to be part of an accelerated track.  “She’s an ACET though, isn’t she?”  He couldn’t remember what all the words were for the anagram, but he knew it was more common in the colonies.  The military academies all followed the same thing, and most of the private schools. 

            “She was until she ran away and Heero started teaching her last year,” he agreed.  “But she’d never been in gymnastics or any sports.  Or taken a computer class.  She only started to learn programming maybe eight months ago, and now she’s writing her own BIOS.” 

            _Okay…_   Homeschooling was starting to sound a _lot_ more okay, all of a sudden. 

            “Stop gossiping and come upstairs,” Melissa ordered as she leaned on the banister. 

            Kasey snickered.  “What, so we can gossip up there?” 

            She grinned.  “I’m feeling excluded.  I’ve been dying to tell my baby brother for over a _year_ , you know?” 

            “Not my fault you did it in the most anticlimactic way possible.” 

            “Just give it a minute to sink in, he’ll go all starry eyed at you soon.” 

            She…  Well, she wasn’t _wrong_.  He’d decided maybe two years ago that what he really wanted to be was an engineer.  He wasn’t sure what kind yet, but…  “That’s how you knew Hilde Schbeiker,” he realized.  The crazy little armory Kay seemed to think no one noticed he had stuffed into the closet that used to be his room, Melissa’s comments about him knowing circuitry like a mad scientist but nothing about combustion engines… 

            _The way he fights…_   He didn’t fight himself, but he’d seen the others spar, and it wasn’t like he was a stranger to all the violence in the city; ‘Liss had always sheltered him, but he wasn’t _blind_.  He’d overheard Luc and Shov talking about exactly what Kay and his sister had done to the Slingers, but… 

            “That God damn _braid_!” he exclaimed before he could help it. 

            “Huh?” 

            Amos hadn’t been to the Den at all, back when that happened, so that was okay, _but_!  “How did none of us figure it out when we found that damn braid?” he demanded. 

            Kay – holy shit not _Kay_ , _Duo Maxwell_! – snorted.  “I don’t know, I wasn’t the one that didn’t figure it out – that’s on you.” 

            “You make _bombs_.” 

            “Among other things.” 

            “What all can you fly?” he demanded eagerly. 

            Kay’s face twisted in a hell of a smirk.  “ _Everything_.”  He made a show of buffing his nails on his shirt.  “I pilot better than any of the others, even Heero.” 

            “I _know_ ,” he agreed.  The stats had been pulled together by a couple of bored soldiers at some point or other and posted on the net; Wing and then Wing Zero and been total powerhouses, and the pilot used that strength with a fantastic efficiency, but Deathscythe had always shown the most sheer _finesse_. 

            “ _Upstairs_ ,” Melissa groaned.  “More moving, less gushing; believe it or not, we’re actually on a time table here before we have to open the shop back up for the evening.” 

            “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, slinging his backpack back up onto his shoulder and racing up two steps at a time.  Seriously?  _Duo Maxwell_ was his _brother-in-law_.  He could corner him and demand details any time he _wanted_.  “Totally picked a good one, Sis,” he announced as he ducked past her into the loft. 

            “Tch, like I didn’t already know that.”  She flicked her hair, loose today, back over her shoulders as she followed him.  “You know he’s going to drive you into the ground, right?  You’ve _seen_ how criminal his work ethic is.” 

            “Hey!” 

            “Totally worth it,” he dismissed, dropping his back again, by Dad this time.  “How’re you feeling?” 

            “Not bad, today.”  He smiled in a tired way.  “I’d ask how much homework you have, but, well…” 

            “Yeah,” Kasey – _Duo!_ – agreed as he and Amos came in and shut the door.  “Lets talk about that.” 

-

***

-

**September 12 th 198 – Thursday – Near Timisoara, Romania**

            Xutao took a deep breath as he finished his meditation, and opened his eyes. 

                        _ETA: 880 seconds_  

            The remote base should be picking up on the first wave of attack any moment now.  _Good timing,_ he mused. 

            The General had taken the Heavyarms Mod today and was leading the other wing of the attack, while he headed a different formation in a Taurus coming through the mountains, where they were less likely to be detected. 

            _“Ah, look, here comes the welcome wagon!”_ one of the Maguanacs – he couldn’t tell them apart over the radio – pointed out cheerfully. 

            _“Hardly the red carpet,”_ the General noted in a wry tone.  _“Still, I suppose they do what they can.”_  

            Xu just rolled his eyes.  He really wasn’t one for battlefield banter. 

            Still, once they took this base off the map the last of the Regime holdings in the Carpathian Mountains would be blind.  So far they’d managed to elude them and no one knew they had such a stronghold in eastern Europe – Zechs’ attack on the Sudan base had proven a nice diversion too, suggesting that they relied strongly on their alliances for protection instead of stealth – but he knew he would breathe easier knowing there was less chance of being caught out at their primary MS base.  There, they had nowhere to retreat to should a siege go south… which was a large part of the military might it housed. 

            They had needed a stronghold nearby, when first starting; a place to house the MS and shuttles as they collected them.  They hadn’t begun to use it as more than a glorified storage facility until Sally determined they were actually ready to bring the fight to the Regime six months ago, and that was after they had begun to filter into the Sudan stronghold. 

            The General had said they were fine to operate from there because the terrain and their prep was such that it would obviously be a pyrrhic victory, should the Regime think to try.  And while no one could claim to know Marquise better than her… it had still worried at the back of his mind, like a dog with a bone. 

            Lucrezia Noin might know Zechs Marquise better than anyone, after all, but not even she had believed he would be willing to drop _Libra_ on South America.  Sally Po hadn’t believed he would try for the Sudanese compound with China standing watchdog.  He doubted Relena Peacecraft had believed he would exile her when she refused to stand by him as he closed the door on the New World. 

            Forecasting a psychopath’s actions apparently didn’t have a very high success rate.  _Surprise, surprise._  

            At this point in his life, he found himself of the mind to prepare for the worst and stack the deck heavily enough in his favor that he could simply roll with the punches.  He might not have multiple safe houses stashed in every country – Adam was terrifying enough for his tendency to sleep in strangers’ attics alone, let alone what else he got up to.  And he might not have Quatre Winner’s personal army at his beck and call, the way the General did, or Yuy’s glacier calm proficiency in _everything physically known to man_ – he did _not_ want to know anything about what caused his general to flush as she laughed softly and texted over last week – and he didn’t know half the shit that he would swear Hilde made up on the spot about explosives that she claimed to have learned from Maxwell… but he thought he was doing pretty well for himself, all the same. 

            After all, he had made his peace about being cut from Operation Meteor years ago.  All his talents, he shared with Wufei, and in _every single one_ his old roommate had outclassed him by a wide margin, once he had bothered to try.  His understanding that he was the second biggest fish in a _tiny_ pond had been the main reason he had left the New Year before Operation M was due to launch.  He’d risked a look through his own file once when he was drunk and being an idiot one night around Christmas, and knew for a fact that the only point he’d had over the other teen could be summed up in a single phrase: _‘Less abrasive to work with.’_  

            And he was very aware that _he_ wasn’t exactly a social butterfly either; his social skills were probably only worth any remark in the first place because of how singularly _awfully_ Wufei treated people. 

            But Wufei was, in his opinion, probably holed away in academia somewhere again, and you know what?  Even with the other gundam pilots running around, he was still one of the big fish in the entire damn _universe_ and had been since _Libra_ , so he really didn’t care anymore. 

            “ _They are certainly dedicated, I will give them that,”_ another Maguanac noted conversationally. 

            And that was his cue to join in the fray. 

-

***

-

**September 15 th 198 – Monday – Space – L5 Region**

            Treize pushed down his fears as he stepped into the secondary airlock.  This was the crux point; if Blaine was a less astute judge of character than he imagined, if Victroff’s influence was less than absolute, this was where he would breathe his last.  There were reasons he had wanted to put off this meeting.  His history here was certainly… rocky.  They might have been on the same side by the end of the war, but that was only ostensibly, not by agreement, and he wasn’t entirely sure if what he had seen as an unspoken alliance was not, in truth, apathy. 

            His room remained properly pressurized, the inner door beginning to unlock, and he slowly released a breath.  He hadn’t stopped breathing – bracing himself would hardly have saved him from vacuum – but he couldn’t _entirely_ suppress the urge to sigh.  He _did_ trust the women who had arranged this, or he never would have agreed to the setting.  He was reasonably sure he could convince these gentlemen to work with him, even; he just preferred to stack his odds a bit more before he walked into a lion’s den. 

            In any case, he was alive, and it was show time. 

            The young man neatly dressed in a traditional costume on the other side of the now open door eyed him clinically for a moment before offering a respectful nod that had just enough shoulder movement to be considered a bow and gestured for his guest to follow him deeper into the ship.  There was a grace to his movements that implied skill with martial arts, but that was to be expected.  Wufei had been very skilled when they fought, back in 195. 

            He had never been more glad for learning to deal with Jake’s speed and reflexes as when he had found himself almost reflexively taking the Chinese swordsman down.  If he had been a mere nanosecond slower, Chang might very well have succeeded in his assassination that night.  Even then, if he hadn’t had such a considerable height and reach advantage over the teenager… 

            It really didn’t bear thinking about.  He still couldn’t believe his luck in the boy’s leaving him alive when he had handed himself over at _Libra_ , but he had every intention of using that concession to his advantage.  The gundam pilot had _chosen_ to leave him alive; that would hopefully give him a considerable amount of latitude here, especially if they had as little idea for where he had spirited himself off to after the Fall as everyone else. 

            There were a number of older men that immediately began to eye him without regard in the room his escort led him to, also in traditional, though practical, dress.  The boy offered them a bow for deeper than the nod he had offered Treize before exiting without a word.  For his part, Treize simply stood, waiting for these men to finish their blatant assessment of him, coolly watching them in turn. 

            “Mr. Treize Khushrenada,” one of them announced in heavily accented English, though there was a wry twist to his mouth.  “The rumors of your death appear to be greatly exaggerated.” 

            Treize felt his own lips twitch.  “If it is any consolation,” he noted, “The event didn’t precisely go as planned.” 

            Another of them harrumphed, giving him an incredulously amused look, while the first man to speak grinned broadly and took a seat; the others began to settle around him.  “I am interested in hearing your side of the story,” he decided.  “To my understanding, Long’s heir was rather… adamant.”  He gestured to a chair.  “Sit.  We will listen.”  His eyes took on a rather piercing quality.  “And, then, perhaps, we may listen to the rest of your story.” 

 

-

***

-

**September 16 th 198 – Tuesday – Regime Fleet, L3 Sector**

            “Hello, Brother,” Relena greeted happily as she stepped off the bridge, moving towards him with purpose with her arms outstretched, smile bright.  She was in a white suit and modest blue blouse today, though of course, a skirt would have been terribly impractical in the low gravity of the ship. 

            He was glad of it, logic or no; when she wore slacks, it was easier to remember that she _wasn’t_ their mother incarnate. 

            Milliardo offered her a tired smile before accepting a brief hug.  “Relena,” he greeted.  “How was the trip?” 

            “Perfectly boring,” she assured him as she stepped back but held onto his arms, considering him.  “You look good,” she decided.  “I like it.” 

            He resisted the urge to reach up and touch his hair.  It had been almost two weeks now, and yet he still hadn’t gotten used to how _light_ his head felt.  “I suppose,” he conceded.  “It was time for a change.”  He wondered, if he told himself that often enough, if it would become true. 

            His father had practically thrown a fit when his mother had had his hair cropped short, as a child.  It was one of the few solid memories he had of the man, and he had spent what felt like _forever_ berating Katrina about appearances and making decisions about his heir without consulting him.  And when she had argued that it had been a ratty mess anyway – that he couldn’t take care of it if they let it grow – he’d been overcome with guilt that he wasn’t good enough for his father. 

            He knew, from an adult’s perspective, that it was ridiculous to have held onto such an inconsequential detail and allowed it to define a large part of his self-identity.  But he’d had so _little_ from his parents before they died… 

            “Long past time,” Relena declared.  “I really do mean it Milliardo, it looks _good_ – it frames your face better.”  Her smile turned mischievous.  “You’ll be beating off the ladies with a stick.” 

            He knew what she meant, and he appreciated the sentiment, he really did, but it still rung hollow, and he couldn’t help but grimace.  “I’m not so sure; the Barton Heiress certainly looks at me like she thinks I _am_ going to beat her.”  His grimace twisted into a scowl.  “She actually expected me to _hurt_ her.” 

            The idea alone was enough to make him lose his appetite…  As if he was some sort of _monster_. 

            “That’s Dekim’s fault, not yours,” Jake argued as he came up from behind Relena; she released him so that his old friend could pull him into a brisk hug.  “The man _was_ a sadistic monster, and he left an impression; when she’s upset, she automatically falls back on childhood expectations.”  Moving back, he shook his head.  “It’s sad, but it’s just a knee-jerk reaction.  I suppose it was too much to hope that she would have outgrown that.  All the same…”  He offered up a smile before adding in a conspiratorial tone, “I’ve come to rescue you.” 

            “I hope you realize just how much this trip has stroked his ego,” Relena noted in a dry conversational tone. 

            “Leia has always enjoyed keeping my ego happily fed,” the other man returned cheerfully before Milliardo could begin thinking of a response.  “She claimed it as a hobby _years_ ago.” 

            “It certainly makes you bounce enough to be worth considering,” his sister sighed, a small smile gracing her lips.  It… was the same sort of smile their mother had always had for him after he had made a mess – affectionately exasperated.  Jake grinned broadly at her and stepped back, taking up what appeared to be a habitual stance just behind and to her right.  Relena shook her head and turned back to him,  adding, “I brought work with me, and a fair share of it is yours.” 

            Milliardo hid a grimace and nodded.  Jake had warned him of just how _much_ the two of them were in the middle of that they would have to compensate for.  Initially, he had tried to backpedal as Jake laid out their workload, but when the colonel made it clear that waiting would only make it worse…  Well, he’d offered to sign a few clearances so she could at least delegate more without running into a brick wall.  And while they were in the same place, he had offered to read everything through and force through the authorizations she needed to save time she would otherwise have needed to spend on red tape.  Why, exactly, an empire he had only founded three years ago required so much _paperwork_ simply to function was entirely beyond him. 

            So far, he’d heard nothing but grudging admiration from his more opinionated staff on Earth; and apparently China was just as happy with her as they had promised to be when they demanded she be made Foreign Minister.  Not only had she thus far been very competent, but there had been a few comments already about how _fast_ she worked. 

            She was also only _sleeping_ four or five hours a night, if Jake was to be believed.  He’d given him a rather pointed, silent stare after getting that particular point across, until Milliardo had caved and told him to write up a list of things he needed to do to make Relena’s job easier.  _Without letting Relena know they were doing it._   If he’d learned anything from their last conversation turned scathing tongue-lashing, it was that she didn’t want to be treated like she was delicate.  But she needed help, and Jake had a talent for micromanaging a system into absurd levels of efficiency. 

            He… wanted to talk to Jake about that before Relena joined them, actually. 

            “How long are you here for?” he temporized. 

            She scrunched her nose – it was oddly adorable.  “If we can get away with it, only a handful of hours.”  She sighed.  “I _am_ sorry Milliardo, but this was hard enough to arrange in the first place.” 

            “I understand,” he agreed, trying to sound calm without being soothing.  “Was there anything you wanted to take care of before we got started?”  Jake offered him and approving sort of nod from behind Relena even as she blinked in surprise – was he normally so short with her? 

            After that moment of confusion, however, her face blossomed into a stunning smile.  “Thank-you for asking, Milliardo.”  Her shoulders lost a tension he hadn’t even noticed before as her expression turned pensive.  “If it’s alright, I think I would like to meet my new guest first.”  Her lips twitched, eyes dancing.  “Perhaps I can make a better first impression than you managed.  I rather suspect it might be to my benefit.” 

            He really did grimace this time.  “Good luck.” 

            Relena’s laugh was both delighted and mischievous.  “I should do fine.”  She winked at him.  “I’m rescuing her, after all.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  If she thought she could swing that angle in her favor, he wasn’t going to protest.  He’d gotten to the point of just not _caring_ ; he’d known by the time he _called his little sister for help_ that he had lost this battle, and in the past week, he had decided that the relief far outweighed the embarrassment.  He fished a keycard out of his front pocket and offered it to her.  “She’s in E8.” 

            She beamed at him before starting off down the hall, closely tailed by a female major and a vaguely familiar dark-haired lieutenant – who offered him a grin and wave, and a quick salute as they passed him.  He sighed, turning back to Jake to ask him if he needed to grab anything before they sequestered themselves to his office, when Relena stepped off of the ship, a leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a large tablet held tight to her chest. 

            _…That can’t be right._   He blinked, and resisted the urge to check over his shoulder in the direction she had gone just moments ago.  In different clothes. 

            “I’m sorry, I was right on your heels, Jake, but then I realized I’d left the Budapest reports in my other knapsack and had to run back,” she explained, swiping her sleeve across her forehead.  She _did_ look flushed. 

            Jake, meanwhile, looked distinctly amused.  “Might want to go back for your manners too.”  She frowned, looking confused until he gestured towards Milliardo. 

            The girl’s eyes went wide and she actually _squeaked_ before going into an all too deep bow, hiding her face.  _Her hair is longer,_ Milliardo realized as the end of a short ponytail fell forward as well.  Relena’s didn’t even reach her shoulders, now.  “I’m sorry!” she cried out again, peeking up at him through her bangs.  “I was running late and didn’t think!  My name is Daniella Fonne, and Princess Relena was kind enough to give my sister and I jobs.  I’m her personal assistant, now.” 

            “She’s not giving herself enough credit,” Jake cut in.  “Adelia and Daniella are old friends of mine, and they more than earn their paychecks.”  He shook his head.  “I think you saw Addie and her son in the kitchen, the last time you visited.” 

            Milliardo blinked again.  “An old friend?” he found himself asking incredulously. 

            Jake rolled his eyes.  “The last time I saw them, Danny here was about eight.” 

            The girl scowled raised her head back up to scowl at the colonel.  “Nine.  And you did it again.” 

            Jake blinked, them grimaced.  “Right, sorry.  I hardly have room to lecture you about manners, huh?” 

            She rolled her eyes, then focused back on Milliardo.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.  Where would you like me to set up?” 

            “Now you’re just going to ignore me?” Jake asked plaintively. 

            “Only so long as you forget my name,” she returned in a chipper tone, not even glancing back at him. 

            At least her smile was different from Relena’s. 

            “Daniella is too long,” Jake argued. 

            “You’re just lazy,” she informed him in the same cheerful tone, even as she tipped her head to one side in question as she met Milliardo’s gaze, shifting the strap of her bag. 

            Milliardo’s lips twitched in spite of himself, and when he took a few steps backwards, her smile brightened and she began to follow.  He turned around to walk properly, and she easily kept pace, as did Jake – continuing to protest, spouting increasingly random complaints.  Daniella continually shot him down with a smile, escalating her own responses to match. 

            Before long, he couldn’t seem to help himself.  “Why not ‘Ella?’” 

-

***

-

            “Why not ‘Ella?’”

            Jake hid a smile as Daniella bounced away to walk alongside Zechs.  “I _know_ , right?” she agreed happily.  Danny still had that same ‘good for the soul’ vibe he usually only got from children – which, incidentally, was why he really _was_ having a hard time adjusting to her renouncing the nickname she had insisted upon when they first met.  In any case, whatever she wanted to be called, she was good for cheering people up, even when she didn’t realize that that was why he was picking at her. 

            Then again, she might realize and just be playing along with it.  Addie, after all, had always given him a knowing look when he started some sort of manipulation before neatly stepping into the role he cast going full throttle with it. 

            It didn’t take them long to get to Zechs’ suite, and little Daniella transitioned them into work nigh seamlessly.  She couldn’t have done a better job laying out exactly what they wanted the prince to see and deftly slipping in what they wanted him to sign but not pay much attention to if he had been coaching her. 

            Then, just to put the cherry on the top?  Zechs was signing off the last of it just as Relena walked in. 

            “I think that went well,” she announced as she entered, Mai and Lin trailing after her, though Mai stayed by the door.  “She seems happy enough with her room, and had started to draw a bath before I left.  She’s locked in, and Rome is camping just outside her door with a screen slate and controller, incase she tries to leave anyhow.”  She quirked an eyebrow at him.  “Something about beating your time on Eden.” 

            Jake grinned.  “That’ll take a while.”  All the extra time they had had to spend cooped up on the shuttle with only intermittent reports and digital paperwork exchanges had been rather amusingly spent crushing the household scores on all the games Hayden had loaded onto the house server.  Some of them, he was sure Hayden, at least, would run right past before long; the kid had determination if nothing else, and arguably more time available to devote to gaming than the rest of Relena’s staff.  Some of the others, though, like Eden… 

            Well, none of his soldiers had reflexes even close to his own.  Mai _probably_ came closest, but she apparently found spectating far more entertaining than games themselves. 

            The princess laughed as she sat next to him.  Daniella quickly wiped her tablet’s screen to bring it back to the home page before offering it to her.  “Where are we, then?” 

            Jake glanced sidelong at Zechs, who, unsurprisingly, was scrutinizing the two teenagers for differences – and they were certainly there, for all that the resemblance was downright eerie.  Daniella had flecks of green in her blue eyes, while Relena had grey.  The line of their noses wasn’t perfectly identical, though it was a close thing.  The princess didn’t have such full, pouty lips as the younger girl, though the overall shape of the mouth was still the same.  Danny still hadn’t lost the last of the baby fat from her face, but once she had, he was fairly sure the slight differences in their cheekbones would be more obvious.  They styled their brows and make-up differently. 

            The primary differences, however, weren’t in the face, and he resisted the urge to laugh as the prince seemed to suddenly realize that his little sister had… filled out.  Danny looked like Relena had back in 195, but sitting side by side…  one of them was very obviously on the cusp of adulthood, and the other fully blossomed. 

            Relena sighed and offered her brother a tight-lipped smile.  “Milliardo, I’m aware that the similarities are uncanny, but I’m going to become upset with you if you don’t start keeping your eyes above the collar.” 

            _Interesting._   Jake smothered a smile.  With the dictator’s hair so short, you could see the man blush all the way across his scalp.  He’d have to grow it out at least a _little_ longer. 

            “My apologies,” he murmured after a moment, looking at the floor, before raising his head up and keeping his eyes level. 

            Relena nodded graciously, perfectly composed.  Daniella, meanwhile, was a handful of shades darker than Zechs, and murmured something that was obviously meant as an acceptance of the apology, but was really maybe seven syllables of nonsense. 

            An awkward silence started to settle after that – not even _he_ had actually expected Relena to go there – so he took it upon himself to get them back on task.  “We actually were just wrapping up,” he announced. 

            Relena blinked in surprise.  “That was fast.” 

            Jake just shrugged.  “Things go pretty fast when everyone’s on the same page.” 

            Relena frowned.  He knew that she really did want to leave as soon as possible… but it would be beyond rude to do so right _now_.  “We can at least have some tea before going,” she decided after a moment.  She looked to Zechs for approval.  “We’ve both been so busy we haven’t had a chance to catch up in a long time.” 

            “We really haven’t,” he murmured by way of agreement, skin fading back to its usual pallor. 

            “I’ll go get it!” Danny squeaked, bolting out the door. 

            Zechs flushed again, and Relena stared in the direction the girl had run for a moment before looking back to Jake.  “Has she ever been on a cruiser like this?” 

            “Nope,” Jake noted, popping the p. 

            She sighed.  “She’s going to get lost.” 

            “ _So_ lost,” Jake agreed. 

            “Scaring the crap out of everyone because they’ll think the princess is doing a spot inspection,” Lin noted dryly. 

            “That hysteria won’t help matters much either,” Mai added helpfully, peering out in the hall.  “I’m not actually sure which way she went, for the record.” 

            Relena pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before relaxing again.  “Well, I suppose she’ll be having an adventure this afternoon.”  Her eyes flicked over to Lin.  “Try to keep it from becoming terribly epic?” 

            “On it,” the lieutenant agreed gamely, jogging back out. 

            “Did any of you actually want that tea?”  Mai asked curiously.  “’Cause, you know, I’m really busy holding up this wall here.” 

            Zechs covered his eyes with one hand.  “I have a good box of oolong over there in the kitchenette,” he admitted, gesturing towards the bar. 

            “Sounds like a plan,” the major decided happily, locking the door and walking confidently over to rifle through the cabinets. 

            Aaaaand that awkward silence descended again. 

            “The amplifier survey finished on a good note?” Zechs asked after a moment. 

            “It did,” Relena agreed, not mentioning that that had been nearly a _month_ ago.  “We’ve made a few tentative plans for repeating it next year, with a smaller team, but nothing definite yet.” 

            Zechs nodded.  “I’m glad that you were able to smooth that over,” he admitted. 

            Relena shrugged.  “Truthfully, they wanted the commerce more than a fight,” she admitted.  “In the end, it was a simple matter of reputation.”  She met his eyes pointedly.  “You broke their trust, while I have a strong history of maintaining it.” 

            He sighed before offering her a tight smile.  “I suppose I will just have to accept that loss as your gain, and we can come at our enemies from either side.” 

            Relena smiled in a wickedly sharp way that was almost alarming; Jake actually wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that particular variation before.  “Are you starting to consider a partnership with me, then, Brother?”  She shifted into the innocent persona she liked to terrorize Romefeller with.  “You scare them, and I’ll come save the day?” 

            …And _this_ was exactly why he was wary of coming clean with her.  If the two siblings chose to _actually_ team up, it was entirely possible that they would be unstoppable.  From the very beginning Relena had been fighting for her brother to consider her an equal, and as far as he could tell that particular goal had never faltered, despite her constantly growing frustration with the man.  Every little thing she did, even her insistence on learning to shoot and defend herself, had carried a note of yearning for approval…  And her bleak disappointment every time Zechs either failed to notice or appeared to disapprove had strengthened his resolve to wait until Treize, him and all of his loyalists, were in a stable and strong position before that particular cat made it out of the bag. 

            In all reality, an _actual_ partnership between the Peacecraft siblings would make for a far more stable state and than the results of any coup.  If Relena could buffer Zechs’ edges and he could take on any of the bad publicity that came from either of their actions…  They would likely make a frighteningly effective team. 

            And Treize had made it clear from the beginning that if Relena was willing to negotiate, he would make considerable concessions.  Something about her having panache and future glory that Jake had done his best to scrub out of his brain before it started to _make sense_.  He’d never quite been able to decide if Treize believed everything he spouted, or if he just knew how to sling words together well enough to make even the worst cynic go starry-eyed. 

            In any case, he had enough issues without actually buying into his friend’s hot/cold sense of noble morality and responsibility.  He really liked the man, he was the supportive older brother that he had _needed_ after being forced to abandon his family and Jack…  But he had never been able to make up his mind over whether the nobleman was a jaw dropping actor or had moods as changeable as the weather. 

            Probably because he was pretty sure _both_ were true. 

            All the same…  Once Treize had a stronger foothold in space, it would be okay, if Zechs were to learn of his survival at _Libra_.  He’d probably suffer a few losses and they’d lose a good amount of current intelligence as anyone under suspicion had to abandon their posts, but it would be doable. 

            And on the off chance that Relena didn’t tell him to _get out_ – though technically Sarracenia was _his_ house, but she didn’t know that – he could probably manage to convince Zechs that he’d been in the dark about their old commander not being dead. 

            There were a really frustrating number of ‘probablys’ in his life, lately… 

            “Not just yet,” Zechs temporized as Jake’s brain continued to fly in circles.  “You’re still gaining valuable experience as you are…  But perhaps we’ll talk when I come back to Earth.” 

            Relena seemed genuinely demure as she nodded and smiled – _far_ more than he knew she was on the subject – but he supposed she hadn’t really gotten her hopes up, considering their history.  “Of course,” she agreed. 

            Hell if all that wasn’t a good sign that she _could_ be turned against her brother…  and yet, he could never manage to clearly read her on the subject…  And asking leading questions would cause the same set of reactions in her as if he straight up _told_ her he was all for bringing her brother, his supposed dear friend, to his knees. 

            To admit that he regretted not following through on the assassination he had been on _Libra_ to perform, almost three years ago. 

            Because really, he’d realized at a young age that when he fucked something up, he did it just as _thoroughly_ as anything else he tried.  There was a reason he’d torn David a new one over his hopes about Relena just _solving_ their problems; far too much had gone fantastically in his life for the past few years for this to end in anything but unmitigated disaster, and as successful as these years had been, the aftermath was going to _burn_ worse than anything other than Junior’s death… 

            Maybe more – because this time, it _was_ going to be all his own damn fault. 

            “Here we go,” Mai announced cheerfully as she came back over with the tea and cookies – _Where the hell did she find **mint chocolate cookies** , Zechs **despises** chocolate_ – on a tray.  He watched as she carefully set it all down on the table between the prince and princess and took her time handing them each a cup and saucer, before holding out the plate of cookies to each of them – Relena took two – and moving away again.  Winking at him, she took a cookie herself before handing him the plate and sauntering back to the door to stand guard. 

            He narrowed his eyes at her, before considering the six or so left for him and deciding he really didn’t need to know how she’d known these were his favorite… brand and all – they had the right imprint pattern.  He supposed they did come in a stack wrapped in plastic; it wasn’t _too_ far fetched that she had pocketed half a stack to placate him with at some point.  At least, it wasn’t entirely _absurd_ … 

            He rolled his eyes as he realized he was seriously debating why _Mailin_ had done something sweet and random for him – like she did everyone else – and ate a damn cookie.  He’d need the endorphins for the conversation he was going to have with Leia anyway…  And the major would seriously pout at him if he spurned her attempt to cheer him up, which was a level of ridiculous he didn’t feel like dealing with right now.  Sticking one in his mouth, he gave her a thankful sort of wave, which had her grinning and giving him a proud nod of acknowledgement, and…            

            Well, just _that_ made him feel a bit better.  Grinning a little, he bit into the chocolate and that added another layer of happiness that he wanted to refuse to admit to, just out of spite… which really _was_ pretty damn funny, come to think of it.  _I’ve been far too damn moody lately._   Resisting the urge to snicker, he caught the edge of the treat with his lips before it could fall and flicked his tongue out to push the rest of it into his mouth without using his hands…  And Mai absolutely _beamed_. 

            Maybe he was damned, but simple pleasures were still creature comforts, and a little bit of brightness to his day wasn’t going to hurt anything. 

            “I’m a little concerned about what I’ve been hearing about the Netherlands,” Zechs announced after taking a sip of his drink. 

            “I don’t see why,” Relena dismissed.  “I looked into it rather closely, myself.  The news glossed over the details, but the spin was accurate.” 

            “A crime boss turned hostage negotiator,” Zechs deadpanned.  “Out of the goodness of his heart.” 

            Jake almost choked on his crumbs.  He wouldn’t exactly call what the Dutchman had done _negotiation_.  Fucking appropriate, maybe, but…  He resisted the urge to start laughing uproariously. 

            Relena chuckled softly.  “Please, brother, you’re exaggerating.  The Devils hardly qualify as gangsters.  If anything, they’re overenthusiastic militia men and women, who never consider themselves off the clock.”  She sipped at her own drink, though Jake noticed that if she’d swallowed any, it had been minimal; Relena wasn’t overly fond of oolong.  “They worked like militia in their quarter of the city long before I sanctioned an official one.”  She raised a brow.  “Surely you know that Amsterdam has had a high population of ex-soldier immigrants since OZ took over the Alliance.” 

            Her brother eyed her steadily, though he inclined his head slightly in agreement.  “It has.” 

            “After _Libra_ , that caused a great deal of instability in the area,” she continued.  “The police force was overwhelmed rather easily, and most of the low-income bracket in the city came to rely on the gangs for protection.”  She shook her head.  “I have a few good sources, but I made sure to take an outsiders perspective as well, along with the local police reports.  The Devils are very tight-knit, settled in a rather large part of the city that falls below the poverty line, and have a reputation for helping the eastern immigrants settle in, as well as a strict non-tolerance policy when it comes to violence towards women and children.  They have a community program for sharing resources for the people who are barely making ends meet, so no one goes cold or hungry.”  She shrugged slightly.  “It’s obviously not the best solution, but it’s far from the worst.  They’re certainly doing more than I was able to apply elsewhere with my projects, just because there’s a trust there that an outsider wouldn’t be able to gain.” 

            Jake smiled to himself and ate another cookie as Relena laid out the basics of what had actually _happened_ : a rather touching story of a community pulling together to stop a group known for maiming children, and returning two little girls to their very distraught parents.  Relena had had a _lot_ of questions for Katrien after they learned that her gang had played a strong role in the recovery of those children, and frankly, he’d been impressed: she was able to give them too many precise details to have made much of it up. 

            Then again, he was also biased.  Katrien Ruttenburg of the Devil’s Get had helped save his life last December.  That was a debt he would never forget, and likely could never repay.  

            “Even if all that is completely true,” Zechs noted skeptically – he clearly didn’t think that was the case.  “The rumors of just how brutally the kidnappers were dealt with has caused ripples.  The country is making them out to be heroes and taking pride in people who openly flout the law, and it sets a dangerous precedent.  Even if you are right about _this_ gang, it makes other city officials across Europe and Africa consider what they might gain from cooperating with their own underbellies, and we have a new angle of corruption to watch for.”  He reached up with one hand to rub his temples.  “And their leader, von Koll, has gained a hardline reputation in the criminal community as well.  I have officials as far east as Sanc reporting murmurs of how they should ‘do things like the Dutchman’ and it will only be a matter of time before more vigilantes get out of hand.” 

            “Well, you can’t change the past,” Relena returned practically.  “It’s done, and in _this_ case, it _was_ for the good of everyone involved.  We will simply have to spin it as best we can.  It _does_ help, however, that the Devils are an intensely private group; we could certainly have worse examples to work with.” 

            Jake tuned them out as they started getting into the details of possible propaganda schemes, though he kept an ear out for a change in topic.  He had the sinking feeling that Leia was going to cry when he told her the truth about Treize.  And maybe slap him when he refused to put her in contact, for all that he’d be sure to paint a damn near fluorescent sign on Mu as a viable option for that.  David would do the right thing and slip Treize the American woman’s number and have her pass off the phone… 

            “Time, however, is a harsh taskmistress,” Relena announced when they had come to something of a deadlock on the subject, standing up and brushing nonexistent crumbs from her lap.  “Thank-you again for meeting us partway, but I imagine you need to get your troops on schedule as much as I need to return to my own post.” 

            He more or less ignored Zechs and Relena’s overly polite farewells in favor of finishing his plate and continuing to try to choose his words for Leia.  She must have thought her lover dead since _Libra_ … and that was horrible to even think about.  He had a few tentative approaches mapped out by the time they were leaving Zechs’ suite.  Mai murmured softly as she joined them by the door that Lin had texted and everyone but them was back on their ship…  And in short order, they were undocking from the larger cruiser and heading back home. 

            He smiled a little to himself when Relena turned to Mai and asked if she could please set up another tea service with both green and the orange blossom rooibos that Jake knew the Leia preferred – the princess had, after all, only used her teacup in Zechs’ rooms as a device to control the flow of the conversation.  Oddly, though, she seemed put out when he made to follow her ten minutes later, when she headed for Leia’s suite. 

            He frowned.  “What?” 

            Her expression was mildly irritated, but quickly shifted into a pout.  “I like her; I wanted to take Mai and have some girl time.” 

            Jake offered her an incredulous look.  “Lena, I haven’t seen her in _years_.  Not since 192.”  _Early 192 at that…_  

            She sighed and offered him a grin.  “Don’t be all _logical_ at me,” she complained happily. 

            He grinned back, feeling an extra bounce in his step.  “We should bring food, too.” 

            “I asked _Mai_ ,” she pointed out dismissively.  “And it’s lunch time.  Mai always brings food appropriate to the time.” 

            _Come to think of it…  she always does, doesn’t she?_   He couldn’t help but widen his smile as they came around the corner to find the major bracing a tray of sandwiches against one hip with one arm, and the requested tea service against her ribcage with the other. 

            “Aw,” she crooned, eyes sparkling.  “He wants to sit and listen to us talk fashion, does he?” 

            “Apparently,” Relena agreed breezily, stepping forward to press her palm to the scanner to open the door. 

            “At least for a little while,” Jake decided.  He had been hoping that they would leave before him so he could talk to his old friend alone, but if that didn’t happen, he supposed he could come back later when he knew Relena was busy with something.  Leia was, after all, now in his custody – he had time.  It just seemed wrong to keep the truth from her any longer than was absolutely necessary. 

            In all the lies and half truths that made up his life, he didn’t need to have yet more hanging over his head.  He loved Leia like the older sister she _was_ , as Treize’s beloved; the deaths of his blood family only made his chosen kin all the more important. 

            He needed to man up and _call_ David- 

            “We come bearing lunch!” Mai announced cheerfully as she strut into the room, half dashing to be in the door before Relena.  “And a pretty boy who says he knows you.”  She snickered.  “Should I send him away?” 

            Jake rolled his eyes as he followed Lena into the room, tapping the control to shut and lock the door again.  He couldn’t see Leia yet… but then she came out from around a corner as Mai set down her trays on the table, her hair damp.  “Jake,” she murmured happily, blinking for a moment as though in confusion before giving him a bright smile and moving towards him with her arms outstretched.  He was more than happy to pull her into an embrace, noting absently that she had changed her perfume, and was wearing her hair longer than he had ever seen it, down to her elbows.  After a moment she pulled back to really _look_ at him, and her eyes sparkled.  “You’ve grown.” 

            He couldn’t help but laugh.  “I should hope – I was a _pipsqueak_ at fourteen.” 

            Her smile deepened.  “You’re still short.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  “You’re just from tall stock,” he argued.  Sometimes he wished he’d gotten at least a _little_ more height from the Lowe side of the family, but generally speaking, he had no complaints about his body.  In all too many ways, being under 5’7 had actually came in handy; and in any case, he had a strong enough presence that most people didn’t even _notice_ he wasn’t a damn giant anymore. 

            She just smiled at him, eyes still evaluating.  “Your voice suits you better too.” 

            He laughed.  He’d actually managed to forget that he’d barely been an alto when he knew Leia; David had stopped teasing him about finally ‘getting a _man’s voice_ ’ after he turned seventeen.  “It’s harder to be intimidating when you still sound like you belong in the church choir,” he admitted.  He took a moment to return her appraising look; she really wasn’t too different from what he remembered.  A touch taller, a little more filled out… even more grace to her movements than when she was a teenager, which was really saying something, considering that she had been mesmerizing just to watch _walk_ before…  Her hair had darkened a few shades, but the deep waves it had always had looked better long, almost like she’d just walked in off a beach. 

            She was even more enchanting than ever…  He wished he could be in the room when Treize finally saw her again. 

            _Treize…_   And there was the guilt again.  _Only another hour more,_ he reminded himself.  _A few at most…  You can keep the charade for **that** much longer, can’t you?_  

            “How do you like your tea?” Relena asked from behind Leia.  “Jake said this at least used to be your favorite blend, but things do change.” 

            Leia laughed slightly, looking over her shoulder.  “I’ve gotten less picky, really,” she reassured the princess.  “Thank-you, but I’ll do it myself in a moment, all the same.” 

            Relena’s tone was content.  “As you will,” she agreed easily. 

            He caught the tail end of a smile Leia directed at the younger woman before turning back to him and hugging him once more.  “It really is good to see you,” she murmured into his hair, crushing him to her chest, and he returned the strength for a moment before loosening up enough that she could pull away if she wanted.  He was honestly content to just breathe in her scent – changed, yet still the same. 

            “I’d started to wonder if we’d _ever_ meet again,” he admitted quietly. 

            She clicked her tongue at him.  “You brood too much.” 

            He grimaced.  “Can’t really argue with that,” he agreed.  “Still, your dad-” 

            “Is dead,” she interrupted, relaxing her grip enough that she could lean back and meet his eyes.  “And don’t think that I don’t believe you had a hand in that plan for even a moment,” she informed him sternly. 

            He just smirked a little.  “I wasn’t going to.”  It hadn’t been too difficult to delay Zechs’ raid on Dekim to show up just after Treize’s…  just in time to clean up his old friend’s tracks.  Nice and convenient.  It would have been more so if he’d been able to keep Lee out of that business for more than a handful of hours, but they’d still made it work. 

            He just wished that Marie hadn’t gotten herself lost in the chaos; no one had anticipated that complication.  _Just like Junior…_   Odin had arranged it so that he should find the boy almost immediately after his death, and yet… 

            He shook himself free of the thought before it could drag him back into the perpetual downward spiral.  He’d been down that rabbit hole enough times and knew he would follow it again… but not right now. 

            Leia finally released him fully, taking a step back and letting out a deep breath.  “Okay,” she decided. 

            He tilted his head, curious.  “Okay?” 

            She offered him a skeptical look.  “Well, now that that’s out of the way…  Are you in contact?” 

            He frowned, trying to make sense of what she meant.  “Contact?” 

            She raised her brows expectantly.  “Relena told me that Treize is alive.  You _are_ in direct contact with him, aren’t you?” 

            …The world _stopped_. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            Duo smiled as he ran his hand down Melissa’s spine, making her squeak and glare at him – though the effect was ruined by the sparkle in her eyes.  Grinning broadly, he tugged her closer to him on the mattress and started to play with her hair instead.  The light of the candles he’d set all around the room earlier shone in the brown curls like they were more fluid than solid… oddly mesmerizing.  “I didn’t overdo it, did I?” he asked absently, shifting his hand to try and see if that would alter the refractions of light or not. 

            “Mm, I don’t know if it’s possible to overdo romance,” she purred into his chest, tilting her head to nibble at his neck.  “I will say that surprising me made it all the better, though,” she decided. 

            “I got Will in on the scheme of distracting you,” he admitted.  He honestly doubted he would have been able to pull off getting this place clean enough and everything set up in time for his wife to come looking for him, if he hadn’t recruited both his father-in-law and sister for the details, let alone the rest of it.  Getting the nice new – well, new to _them_ , and nice enough – mattress here alone had gotten kinda hilarious at one point, between Mik and Laura’s squabbling about what _being married_ meant of all things, especially when the woman suggested something raunchy enough that Ruben _actually_ fell and twisted his ankle.  Then with her little speech about women always _talking_ about these things without problems had kept him beet red the rest of the way to the shop…  which had evidently been _hilarious_ …  and indicated that he might _need advice on how to keep his wife pleased_ …  While they _walked down the middle of the **street** with a bigass **mattress** over their heads…_  

            He chuckled a little to himself.  At least Melissa’s reaction upon coming into a candlelit shop had made the psychosis of the afternoon worth it.  Although he was still a bit annoyed about the fact that Rina had thought it was a great idea to sprinkle _gold **glitter**_ all over the place as a finishing touch. 

            He was making _her_ sweep that crap up tomorrow, and maybe she’d see if it still seemed like a good idea the next time he asked for her help with something. 

            Melissa started to giggle.  “You got my _Dad_ to help you seduce me?” she demanded incredulously. 

            “No, he was only in on the distraction part of the plan,” Duo pointed out happily.  “He was very clear about that before he agreed to anything.” 

            She started laughing harder and he took the opportunity to catch her mouth in another kiss and roll them so he was on top instead of beside her.  It really was pleasantly warm in here now, with the quiet little space heater he’d rigged together.  They wouldn’t have to go home until tomorrow afternoon, if they wanted… or probably even longer, but he was pretty sure Nolan would get all weird on him for a while if they pushed it further than tomorrow. 

            Melissa made a happy noise in the back of her throat even as she pushed up to her elbows, then hands, though she started to giggle again when he didn’t end the kiss through the process.  After a moment he let her pull away, meeting her eyes… in time to see her eyes sparkle with mischief as she snapped the tie on his ponytail.  She giggled hard as his hair suddenly flowed around them almost like a privacy screen before grabbing the back of his neck and dropping her weight so he lost his balance and they both fell back to the bed. 

            He snickered too, pulling the mass of it over to his left side so it wouldn’t end up in her face as he moved his attention back to her neck… and collarbone… and gasped just short of growling when she tugged a fistful of the stuff to keep him from going any further, chuckling as she bit his lower lip and let her hands wander. 

            _Yeah… I’m going to have to pull off evenings like this more often._  

-

***

-

**L3 Sector, Space – Relena’s Shuttle**

            Relena met eyes with Mai briefly, somewhat relieved that the other woman’s expression was just as stunned as she imagined her own was.  When they had told Leia the truth upon getting her aboard, it actually hadn’t occurred to them that she might naturally assume that her source of information was _Jake_. 

            In retrospect, it really should have. 

            She let out a gusty sigh before taking a few steps toward the two.  “You just broke a promise I made to my bodyguard, Leia,” she admonished gently.  Perhaps starting this off with a bout of dry humor would be helpful. 

            Leia turned around to face her and Mai properly, frowning.  “What?” 

            She smiled slightly.  “I promised Lin he could be at least eight hours away when Jake realized we were onto him.”  Now that Leia had moved a bit, she could actually _see_ her colonel… and he was bone white. 

            _I’ve never seen him this upset,_ a distant part of her realized.  _Not even **close** to this upset…_  

            Leia’s eyes widened, and she glanced back to Jake for confirmation; and apparently decided that his pallor was confirmation enough.  “You didn’t…”  She trailed off, narrowing her eyes at Relena.  “I only believed you because…”  Despair filled her eyes – then _fury_ flooded across her face as well.  “If you’re wrong, I swear to _God-_ ”  Her voice cracked. 

            “I’m _not_ wrong,” Relena swore solemnly, though she was sure to maintain some distance from the noblewoman.  “I told you it was from a reliable source; I just never stated who.”  She paused, swallowing.  “I have other evidence as well, including a plant of his in my staff that I left home in Germany.”  She looked around the woman to Jake, meeting his eyes solidly.  “But now that it’s been brought up,” she continued calmly, “perhaps you should question a source you trust.” 

            He wasn’t stoic and cold, the way he had been when Brussels was under attack…  but he didn’t have a hint of rage in him either.  That was good, she hoped; she had worried about his temper, at least a little.  But…  It was everything she could do to stand where she was and watch him, instead of running over and throwing her arms about his neck, whispering calming words in his ear.  For all that seeing the pain on Leia’s face at the very _idea_ that she had gotten her hopes up for nothing hurt like a wound, the despair on the face of the man she loved was nearly crippling.  She couldn’t have ever _imagined_ seeing this much despair in him… and yet here it was – directed at _her_. 

            _Oh Jake…_   “Jake?” she prompted aloud, barely more than a whisper. 

            He swallowed hard, and finally moved, his eyes flicking to Leia, back to herself, then back to Leia again.  “I…” 

            “Jake, _please_ ,” Leia whispered, taking a small step closer to him.  “Is he…?” 

            He stared at her for a long moment before focusing his gaze back on Relena.  “I’m not in contact with him,” he announced, his gaze pleading.  “I’m not…”  He focused back on Leia, and licked his lips.  “I’m not, but I _can_ be.” 

            So they really had been right…  He had discarded his loyalty to his childhood friend for her. 

            Somehow, that knowledge _burned_ as much as it soothed her doubts. 

            His eyes grew sharper as he focused back on her again, and she could see he had begun to faintly tremor.  Leia looked at them both, tears in her eyes, before quickly stepping to the side so she wasn’t between them anymore.  Relena saw movement in her peripheral vision that she assumed was Mai, but refused to break eye contact while it seemed so important for him to maintain it. 

            “How long have you known?” he whispered after an eternity. 

            She considered asking him if that really _mattered_ , now, but shook off the urge as petulant.  “Since the day we met Olivia.” 

            He blinked, and his face screwed up with confusion, but thankfully he didn’t look so pale now.  “ _Olivia_ told you?” he demanded incredulously. 

            She glared then, because _really_?  She liked the redhead well enough now, but _seriously_?  “No,” she announced, unable to help the fact that her voice was dripping with scorn.  It was truly a _moronic_ question.  “Wufei did.” 

            Both he and Leia visibly recoiled at her response, though she imagined it was for different reasons.  “Wufei?” Jake repeated, still incredulous, like he thought she was having him on.  “ _Chang Wufei_ came up to you the day we met Olivia, and told you that Treize was alive?”  His face was reddening now, anger and frustration beginning to color his expression as well. 

            “Long Wu, these days,” she corrected in a steely tone.  “If I remember correctly, he’s the one you once said was by far the most talented of the engineers the Chinese had?” 

            The blood drained from his face yet again, and Mai took advantage of the tableau to take Leia by the arm and lead her back towards the bedroom of the suite.  She appreciated the attempt to give the two of them a little privacy – though right now, she could hardly see the point. 

            There was another long pause before he said anything else, and she did her best to wait patiently, watching him process the information, make his own conclusions.  “So you’ve told Lin, and Mai,” he decided. 

            “Dorothy first,” she corrected.  “Before even twenty-four hours had passed.” 

            “Dorothy,” he repeated in a dry tone. 

            She glared at him.  “I tell Dorothy _everything_ ,” she snapped.  “She has been perfectly loyal to me since _long_ before you started to try earning my trust.” 

            Jake winced at that as though she had slapped him, then scowled.  “You used to trust so _easily_ , Lena, I-” 

            “Like _hell_ I did!” she snarled, just so entirely _done_ with his bullshit.  “I wanted to see what you could _do_.  Then ever since I’ve _wanted_ to trust you, but you were my brother’s _friend_ , what was I _supposed_ to think?!” 

            He stared at her wide-eyed, like she was a stranger, suddenly, and it made her all the angrier, somehow. 

            “You _conceited_ **_ass_**!” she snarled.  “Do you really think I’m so _oblivious_?  I had been waiting for you to find a reason to turn my brother on me since I _met_ you!  I only realized that _Milliardo_ wasn’t the one I should worry about when I looped in Lincoln last month!  And even then, it only took us _five **minutes**_ to realize you wouldn’t give us to Treize either!  Not after you used David to clean the loyalists out of my house, after you were so upset about Mu!”  She felt a sneer twist her lips, and _hated_ it even as she practically screamed, “I’ve had Lin keeping her under _surveillance_ since the start of _July_ , when you could have just _fired_ her and told me the _truth_!” 

            Jake’s eyes were rounded now, hurt, but his expression looked nearly as upset as she felt.  “Well at least I’m in good company,” he growled.  “Are there any _other_ old friends you’ve been talking to that I don’t know about?” 

            “Duo, for one,” she snapped back.  “Not that he gave me any _details_ about what he was up to.  And before you ask, I wish Heero or Noin would try, but they can’t be bothered to even let me know if they’re _alive_!” 

            He had that stricken look again, and looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes again.  “Des had a proof of life from Lu,” he admitted, his temper fading away to nothing.  “He gets one from her once a year, if not more.” 

            “Why _thank-you_ for telling me that!” she practically screeched.  “It’s not like she was my _friend_ or anything!  Like maybe I wouldn’t have _cared_ to know!” 

            He scowled.  “She didn’t send me anything either,” he argued. 

            “Good!” she snapped.  “That means you’ve only been hiding _that_ for two months!  Anything else you want to tell me?” 

            “Not while you’re screaming at me, no!” he snapped, crossing his arms.  “How about you?” 

            “Just _ask_!” 

            His eyes narrowed.  “Seeing as you _know_ about Treize, what do you want to do about it?” 

            “I don’t know,” she sneered, trying to bring her volume back down.  She wasn’t sure how well she succeeded.  “It depends on what _he_ thinks about all this, but I was _hoping_ he might have a plan for how to handle my _brother_.” 

            “Handle?” Jake asked in a terse tone.  “Need something a little clearer than that, Lena.” 

            “Really?” she demanded. 

            “Considering the fact that I’m really regretting not slitting his throat back on _Libra_ , _yeah_ , I kinda need a little more fucking _clarification_!” 

            That little piece of information should have startled her, or at least upset her, she knew.  Maybe it was just the fact that her temper had gotten the better of her for the first time in practically forever that she _laughed_ at him instead.  “You have _no_ idea how close I came to shooting him on that damn ship!” 

            The shocked look that she had never seen before the start of this argument was back again, his arms falling limp.  “ _What_?” he demanded. 

            “Dorothy tried to talk me into it,” she spat.  “She said she thought it might be the only way out of that mess, but she thought I was the only one he wouldn’t suspect enough to be able to actually _do_ it.”  She looked away from him, finally.  “But I was still naïve enough to believe my ideals might work, back then.”  And for all that she thought she had left those tattered dreams behind a long time ago, her birth father’s fairytale vision for the future, it still _hurt_ to admit their foolishness, her crushed hopes, out loud. 

            “Well I was stupid enough to believe he was only bluffing about genocide, so we’re in the same damn boat for that one,” he admitted in a cold tone – weary, too, but still cold. 

            Her legs felt weak, suddenly, and she allowed them to collapse as she started to cry.  “Damn it, Jake…”  She was staring at her lap when her vision started to blur, and she brought her hands up to cover her face.  “How the hell did we get to _this_?” 

            He let out a long sigh before padding over on the plush carpet and crouching down in front of her.  “I don’t know,” he muttered.  “That’s a little too complicated of a question for my brain right now, ask me later.” 

            She started laughing hysterically even as the waterworks really started, unable to even _think_ of a response to that… and started to sob at the same time when he shifted to kneel instead so he could pull her tight to his chest, so tight it almost _hurt_ , but she wanted the contact more than anything, _needed_ it like she did air, right now.  Her breath hitched hard enough she almost hiccupped when he pressed his face to her hair, taking in her scent without any sign of shame or feigned indifference… 

            She heard the bedroom door pointedly click shut as Mai evidently decided she didn’t have to worry about the two of them trying to rip each other’s throats out. 

            She couldn’t give a damn that anyone had witnessed the entire meltdown, though.  She just clung to Jake, some part of her terrified that now that his secrets were in the open, he was going to just disappear…  _Was that why I didn’t want to confront him on this sooner?_   Had she been scared that he would run off, or that he would chase her away – the way he had David? 

            She just couldn’t care anymore, though…  It was done.  The air had been cleared… and whatever came because of it would come. 

            With that in mind, she just held onto him and tried to focus on calming her body down, even though she felt more and more exhausted as the anger and anxiety drained away, until she started to think that it was only her death grip on the man that was keeping her awake at all… 

            “…There’s going to be a ‘later’, right?” he asked in a hoarse voice – after she had finally managed to fall silent and had begun to wonder if it wasn’t she that was still shaking, but him.  “You… you don’t want me gone?”  He started to pull away slightly as he stuttered, breaking her grip – probably trying to look her in the eyes as he asked, but his tone alone was heartbreaking. 

            She launched herself at him as he tried to retreat, catching the surprise in his eyes as he fell flat on his back before she buried her head in his chest and curled in a ball in the center of his mass, weighing him down.  “Don’t you _dare_ ,” she half cried.  “Don’t be stupid, why are you acting so stupid when you’re normally so smart about these things, don’t you _dare_ try to leave you stupid _man_ …  Why would you even _think_ I would want you to go?!”  She lifted her head enough to glower up at him, and froze when she realized he was staring down at her as though she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen, instead of a spoiled princess laying on top of him like a _child_ in the middle of a guest suite with blotchy skin and streaks of eyeliner surely running down her cheeks. 

            That or Dorothy had followed through on her threat of replacing all of her make-up to be waterproof…  Maybe she looked good enough to deserve that adoration after all. 

            His little chuckle when she pursed her lips and glared at him again was verging on hysterical.  “I don’t know,” he whispered after another long moment, lifting one hand to run through her hair… and laughing again, still disbelievingly, when she closed her eyes and leaned into the touch.  “Maybe I really am just stupid,” he decided. 

            “Well, stop it,” she ordered without opening her eyes.  “I don’t appreciate it.” 

            He barked out a slightly less hysterical laugh and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders.  “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he announced a little breathlessly. 

            She started to giggle a bit herself.  “Please do.” 

            “Whatever you want,” he agreed.  “Fuck, Lena…” 

            “I’m still mad at you,” she groused, trying to settle her head into a more comfortable spot on his chest.  “I’m going to be mad at you for at _least_ another week.” 

            “Of course you are…  I’m okay with that,” he decided.  “Totally, _completely_ , okay with that…” 

            “Good.”  She sniffed.  “I’m not letting you move for another fifteen minutes either, you jackass.” 

            “Can’t think of any reason Leia might need this room before then,” he agreed in the same happy, breathless tone. 

            She felt her lips start to twitch in a smile.  “I also might fall asleep on you.” 

            “Also just fine, I can work with that.”  A more genuine laugh trying to escape made his chest rumble.  “I’ll just carry you to bed.” 

            “You’d better be there when I wake up,” she ordered. 

            He really did laugh in a genuine way, then.  “Well, my bed’s in there too, so that works.” 

            She yawned.  “Good.” 

            Anything else could wait… and so long as he _was_ there when she next went to sleep and woke, and the day after that, and the next, and the next?  She didn’t really see what else could go wrong. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**Now that Lena and Jake are over their psychosis, things can really start to move along.**

**Any theories about what’s going to come next?  Favorite parts?  I think my favorite was Odin and Marlé’s scene, personally, but Mailin has turned into _such_ an amusing plot device…  **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that Lena and Jake are over their psychosis, things can really start to move along. 
> 
> Any theories about what’s going to come next? Favorite parts? In the original version, I think my favorite was Odin and Marlé’s scene, personally, but Mailin has turned into such an amusing plot device… And there's so much within the emotional back and forth between these two finally getting over their nonsense that I adore.
> 
> Otherwise, I'm curious to know whatall anyone's actually picked up about Zechs. I've been seeding in a lot of details here, but other than the obvious points where he collapsed during the fight with Jack, or when Jake interrogated him over his health, a lot of it's more subtle... especially his scenes since Odin kicked his ass in Sudan. Or at least, I think it's subtle and no one else has pointed it out... and most of my readers probably lack the shitty life experiences that would make some details read as red flags? I don't know. ...Which is why I'm curious, I suppose.


	16. Resolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena's household is finally coming together as a whole, though Jake has a few loose ends to tie up yet... and a princess to woo, can't forget that. Odin explores the details of new emotions, to both the dismay and delight of everyone involved, and Duo stops a bar fight. Quatre, meanwhile has Big Plans and Marie makes new friends. Elsewhere, Adam has something of a panic attack for good reasons but still with wretched timing. 
> 
> Also? Butterscotch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter. It's the first one that's free of the stupid angst Jake attempted to wreck everyone's life with, and that relief shows - though not everyone's quite at happily ever after yet either. 
> 
>  
> 
> \--  
> Edit:  
> \--
> 
> Mostly just typo fixes and grammar changes in this one. The only definitive 'change' here is that Quatre's 'social networking group' composed initially all of the guys who left Cambyses with him or are making contact after going with Mitchell has a name. Realistically, I should have had the name up from the start, but... I'm actually not sure why I didn't, beyond not having one figured out yet. 
> 
> Anyway, if you're just skimming for new facts, the group Quatre and Odin are forming up is 'Revenant Rubato'. It'll continue to be referred to at least partially by this name from here on out, but still often in the vaguer terms it saw in the original. 
> 
> \--

**_-_ **

**_ Resolve _ **

_\--_

_ Failure is not an option.  It’s a step.   _

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**September 27 th 198 – Friday – L4 Cluster**

 

**_-_ **

**_‘No questions.  No commitments.  Just answers.’_ **

**_-_ **

 

            Odin glanced back at the flyer, his curiosity in the ad piqued by the sheer lack of… _advertisement_.  The blues of the sign stood out…  But there were no images with the words, or art.  Just a symbol he didn’t recognize in the same color as the writing, and in the bottom corner, an acronym.  _HTD._  

            The only other person standing by the bulletin board popped her gum loudly, then reached across him with their phone to snap a photo of a listing for a used bicycle.  He shifted backwards slightly as she reached forward even further to correct her angle, eyes narrowing in irritation. 

            _Doesn’t she realize the camera has a zoom function?_

            He glanced back at her as the phone made a shutter noise, and she offered him a broad grin as she popped her gum again, eying him up and down. 

            _Oh._   He frowned.  This had been happening more often, lately.  He pointedly broke eye contact and pulled his own phone out of his pocket, activating the screen.  A speech bubble had popped up from Lucrezia:

            _‘Butterscotch’_

            He grinned as he swiped a finger across the screen and pulled up the keyboard.  _‘Bananas’_

He didn’t always have an answer right away, after all.  Considering Marlé’s dismay yesterday, though, he wondered if she had said something. 

            “Looking for something particular?” the gum woman asked, her voice pitched low. 

            It wasn’t half as alluring as her expression suggested she believed.  “No.”  A new speech bubble popped up. 

            _‘Really?’_

            “Just browsing, huh?” 

            “No.”  Marlé had given him an incredulously revolted look when he picked up a package of single serve cups, but apparently she thought the flavor was disgusting.  Lucrezia’s lack of recognition meant that it might have just been an Odin thing, though, so he explained. _‘Like apple slices and caramel.’_

            _‘Oh, pudding!  I meant candy.’_  

            He frowned, trying to decide what she meant.  He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything labeled in an aisle… but he’d admittedly never _looked_ either.  _‘Candy?’_  

            The woman next to him huffed slightly.  “It’s cold out here.” 

            “Not really,” he disagreed, opening a window to search ‘butterscotch candy’.  He was wearing his coat open and had shoved the collar wide; the wind was actually nice enough that he was a little irritated that he was wearing his coat at all.  It wasn’t the most uncomfortable Fall cycle he’d experienced, but apparently the meteorologists here took autumn seriously.  The temperature had been kept low consistently enough to make the leaves change… and he’d heard enough to realize that having an obvious cosmetic shift to the seasons could be important.  He and Marlé had passed a few families leading small children through colorful drifts of leaves earlier, and it had reminded him of the evergreens and snow in L5, last Christmas. 

            The more he noticed weather, the more he was finding he liked it. 

            He heard more than saw her make a face; her gum made an odd squelching sound.  “They didn’t have to make the wind so icy,” she argued. 

            “You could go inside,” he pointed out, considering the image of a gold foil wrapper.  He was pretty sure he’d never seen it before, which was… unhelpful.  And frustrating.  He’d thought, after a year of traveling with Marlé, this would happen a little less _frequently_.  His phone vibrated, and he flicked his conversation with Lucrezia back open. 

            It was a picture of a small tan oval with a raised ‘G’ in the same style he’d seen on the wrapper image imprinted on it… held delicately between the teeth of a woman’s mouth, gently surrounded by delicate, flawless lips. 

            _That,_ he decided as he stared – eyes tracing over the details of her mouth that he couldn’t seem to memorize, suddenly wanting to reach out and draw his thumb over her lower lip – _is **very** interesting._  

            He wondered if the thick flavor of the butterscotch would contrast with the sharp berry of her lip stain.  _It might not._   But if it did, he was sure he could just- 

            “Fake chocolate syrup is proof that there _is_ a God,” Marlé announced loudly as she strode purposefully out of the coffee shop, a tall cup in each hand and a paper bag tucked under one arm.  She caught him off guard enough that when she thrust one of the drinks at him, he had to toss the phone in the air briefly and catch it one handed as he grappled for a grip on the cardboard with the other. 

            Odin licked suddenly dry lips and quickly took a gulp of his drink, trying to bury the ache the picture had set off. 

            A rich flavor he hadn’t been expecting redoubled that _want_ instead, electricity surging down his nerves and through his muscles in time with his accelerating heartbeat. 

            He stared at his sister in disbelief. 

            She blinked back at him.  “What?” 

            …It was remarkably hard to _think_.  If he tried to force out words right now, he wasn’t sure he could do more than groan. 

            Marlé scowled at him, growing defensive.  “Just because you’re _gross_ doesn’t mean I’m not going to get you stuff if I think you’ll like it, you know.  I’m not petty.” 

            He stared for a moment longer, processing the words into sounds and then back again as he realized their innocence… and took another drink to buy time. 

            Sweet butterscotch rolled across his tongue alongside the dark, deeply spiced, coffee.  The contrast was… 

            He took another, longer drink, dropping his back against the notice board and slouching, trying to force his body to relax. 

            Silencing the sudden urge to _laugh_ with another long sip, he held the liquid in his mouth for a long moment before swallowing, trying to drag his thoughts back into straight lines.  He could pursue this later – when Marlé _wasn’t_ standing in front of him expecting approval.  Approval she probably deserved. 

            Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to do more than stare at her in what he hoped she took as shock; his pupils were blown wide enough that the overcast afternoon light was _blinding_. 

            The gum woman made an irritated noise and stormed off, and it was a relief when Marlé turned away to blink after her in confusion.  The urge to laugh increased, and he bit into the soft plastic of the cup’s lid.  The muscles that made up his abdomen and flanks were faintly _vibrating_ with charged energy.  

            He took a deep breath as Marlé tried to puzzle through the stranger’s behavior, crossing his eyes for a moment and narrowing his gaze on the scarf hanging loose around her neck, forcing his pupils to constrict as he focused on the individual threads of color that made up the fabric.  Only after he had defined the four distinct shades that combined to form the pale blue cloth did he let out his breath in a controlled, even motion… and reflexively took another sip. 

            Insistent _need_ washed back through him as butterscotch flooded his senses once again. 

            It was distinctly _not_ helpful. 

            He took another drink anyway. 

            This had never happened while _away_ from the source before.  Even then, it had never been quite so _strong_ either… which made Lucrezia all the more exceptional, really. 

            But that conclusion didn’t solve the problem of it happening in public with the thirteen-year-old, where he couldn’t do something practical about it.  If anything, it made him want to go find Lucrezia _right now_ and see where it led… or at least shuffle Marlé off on some imagined errand so he could find somewhere private. 

            That idea left a bad taste in his mouth, though.  And Marlé had just stood in line for almost half an hour so they could try the locally famous café’s meat pies. 

            …Maybe if he just finished the whole cup it would _sate_ something. 

            Marlé turned back to him, her eyes growing concerned.  “Are you okay?” 

            He closed his eyes again briefly and nodded, slowing his heart and shifting his weight experimentally; it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as he’d expected.  Trying for casual, he moved to tuck his free hand into his coat pocket, and found that he was holding onto the phone like it was a dead man’s switch.  Forcing his fingers to unclench, he jammed the device into his back pocket without looking back at it, and his hand into his coat.  “Fine,” he added.  His voice was rough. 

            She bit her lip, looking doubtful, and even more worried.  “Are you sure?” 

            He coughed a little to clear his throat, straightening from his slouch and nodding again.  “Yes.”  It came out more normal this time.  At her suspicious look, he gestured upwards with his coffee cup.  “Thanks.” 

            She smiled brightly at the praise, and he felt the pressure ease a little more – almost as if he’d been holding his breath and just remembered to breathe again.  His heart continued trying to race the same way it wanted to in the excitement of realizing he’d just dodged a possibly critical blow from an enemy; he halfheartedly tamped it down again, keeping the rhythm inside an average resting range, if not close to his own slow baseline. 

            “Good,” Marlé decided, moving to sit on a nearby bench and unfurling the top of her bag.  “If you get sick, I’d probably get it worse.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “Again.” 

            Odin grimaced, his stomach turning at the thought.  That _had_ happened last December, and in some ways it had been worse than recovering from blowing himself up.  At least he had slept through the worst of that.  He couldn’t remember _ever_ being so sick in his life, and once Marlé had caught it from him, she hadn’t been much more than a morosely clingy ball of sticky, feverish spite. 

            For lack of any better ideas, they had refused to leave their room in a relatively nice motel for an entire six days and ordered room service that neither of them had any great success in keeping down.  By the time the little girl had started refusing to let go of him for longer than it took either of them to pee, he’d been so exhausted that he’d have sworn it was _logical_.  Even after she’d thrown up over them both in the damn bed, he’d just pulled her into the shower after him and turned the water on.  At the time, he’d thought that their clothes needed to be washed anyhow so it was just easier – it wasn’t until they were both shivering and even _more_ wretched twenty minutes later that he remembered there was a _process_ to washing clothes.  And that it worked better if you weren’t _wearing_ them while you did it. 

            Looking back, it was a wonder they hadn’t been thrown out. 

            Marlé pulled a pair of meat buns with flaky crust out of the bag and he shook his head as he moved to sit next to her.  “We’re _not_ doing that again,” he decided, taking another sip of his coffee.  This time, it tasted damn good, but the memories of that week had destroyed any connections it had to arousal.  He reached for one of the pies, and Marlé took the other. 

            She made an irritated noise at him.  “It’s not like you _plan_ being sick,” she argued.  “It just _happens_.” 

            There was no point arguing with that, but that didn’t make his decision invalid. “We are _not_ doing that again,” he repeated.  He didn’t care if that wasn’t how it worked; he’d been through a lot of pretty bad crap, and he didn’t care if he had to do most of it over again, but that week? 

            _No._

            For all that afterwards he’d been able to write it off as fever-induced insanity, on some level he had become convinced that week that Marlé was going to die and that there was nothing he could do about it.  And while normally thinking like that upset him enough that he figured out something to do _anyway_ , the next thing that _had_ happened was that he woke up with his back against the bathroom wall with an armful of burning hot girl and a small elbow in his aching ribs.

            And then it had happened _again_.  And again.  Then he wasn’t sure if he started dreaming about the first three times, or if it really _had_ happened another three times after that. 

            Marlé scrunched up her nose.  “Well, no.  We’re totally not.  I mean, we already did it.”  She smiled.  “And anyway, even if we started to, we could, like, call Quatre or something and make him come be happy at us.” 

            …He was fairly sure that _that_ wasn’t how that worked.  But he also knew that Quatre would probably help him with anything if he actually asked him – he’d certainly gone to extreme lengths before, even while Odin had been actively trying to _convince_ him to leave. 

            Cold swept over him suddenly as he realized that, thinking back, Quatre _had_ sat with him through fevers.  They had been from infection, not sickness, and he hadn’t thrown up so much as shivered and burned and tried to sleep it off…  But Quatre had been there.  And while he remembered the other pilot being gone frequently enough when he opened his eyes – surprised to be waking up again at all – he had always come back. 

            …And there was an uncomfortable amount of time that he _couldn’t_ remember from that year he and Quatre spent on the run.  Time that _Quatre_ had spent running, with Heero as little more than dead weight on his back. 

            He _had_ been helpless, as hard as he had tried, at the time, to deny it – then later, to forget.  He would have been found in the wreckage of Wing Zero without Quatre, not even counting all the times he had kept him safe after that.  Quatre was the only reason he had survived long enough to come to terms with his life in Israel. 

            _Actually, Quatre was the only reason any of us lived through the first group assault on **Libra**._   They were fast on their way to being overwhelmed before the tactician had rallied them into a supporting formation.  Then he had been the only reason they survived again, after Dorothy took control of the doll army.  Even if they had somehow pulled together out of necessity before that – which he doubted – none of them could have matched Catalonia the way Quatre had. 

            _Quatre…  Hm._  

            Maybe this feeling, right now, was how people who thought he was invincible and did the impossible, no matter the odds, felt about _him_.  It changed everything he knew… and at the same time, it really didn’t.  Quatre… was just Quatre.  And he knew that he, personally, had never gotten much from the almost _expectant_ way so many people had felt about him; it hadn’t changed anything about his successes, his failures. 

            _But Quatre always had my back, didn’t he?_   He’d backed _all_ of them up, without hesitation or fail from the moment he realized he wasn’t the only gundam pilot to fall to Earth.  The only time he had gone against any of them had been after building Wing Zero – then after that, he had taken the long road of surviving, of paying penance, instead of looking for a way out.  Now, after the war, after the Sahara, he was doing it again, even when it would be easy for him to disappear into his sisters’ network and never be seen again.  However many times Quatre failed, or even just _imagined_ he failed, he never _stopped_.  He didn’t even glance at the exits, easy or hard… 

            And he _still_ had Odin’s back, despite everything.  Quatre, he was sure, would say that it was _because_ of everything. 

            He met Marlé’s curious eyes and smiled, feeling light… light and _solid_ at the same time.  “Quatre would come if we needed him,” he agreed.  It was something he’d known since he’d had proof that his friend was alive, but it felt different, to _understand_ it.  “And if he needed _us_ ,” he continued, reveling in the feel of it- 

            “In a _heartbeat_ ,” Marlé finished fiercely, her eyes lit up with the same thing coursing through him.  He still didn’t know what to call it – but it was something that, he realized, Marlé came to naturally.  _He’d_ had to work at it for years, chipping away at everything he’d known his entire life to even find the foundation to build it from, but she was like Quatre – she had the same intense ability to find kinship with strangers and hold on with all of Quatre’s tenacity.  And she could do it while she applied Odin’s own brand of stubborn, even as she never lost sight of who she had been before. 

            “We will,” he agreed.  He’d never been so sure of anything as he was of this… this…  _Follow your emotions._   This emotion had to have been what his father meant, when he said that… 

            “What **_is_** _this_?!” he demanded, suddenly frustrated. 

            He recognized it – he’d felt it before, if never quite so clearly, so _precisely_ as right now, for Marlé and for Quatre.  It had been there with his father, and it had been at least the start of the reason he couldn’t kill Duo back in that cell three years ago – why he’d never been able to consider the possibility that the American hadn’t survived, after _Libra_.  The loss of it was what made him avoid Trowa, after the amnesia – it had felt as though if he disturbed the ghost of it, if he tried to get to know the stranger wearing his friend’s face, it would disappear entirely.  It was the _want_ of it that had made him chase after Xutao when he had mistaken him for Wufei, even though the two of them had never really _had_ this, whatever it was…  

            Marlé stared back at him with upset eyes for a long moment as he met her gaze stubbornly, refusing to take back the question, _willing_ her to understand what he had meant.  Marlé could explain things; right from the start, she had _always_ been able to see right to the heart of what he was trying to say and make it make _sense_ , and despite the fact that they weren’t in any kind of danger, this _need_ , so different from earlier, was more dire than anything he had been able to imagine even just five minutes ago.  And he knew, he _knew_ that Marlé knew what it was. 

            He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, his chest heaving like he had just run ten miles and _needing_ , Marlé staring at him, eyes scared and angry and adoring and cynical and so many other things he couldn’t _name_ before she made an awful whine in the back of her throat, let go of her coffee cup, and launched herself at him.  He quickly dropped his own as straight as he could and caught her around the waist as she flung her arms around his neck, pulling her tight against him as she let out another awful noise that he was realizing were aborted sobs, and drew her legs up behind her so she was tucked in a ball on his thighs. 

            She didn’t fit cradled in his lap like this even half as well as she had a year ago – but she managed it all the same, and there was something comforting about that.  She didn’t try to bury her face in his chest or shoulder the way she did when she wanted comfort, though, instead pressing the side of her face to his hair…  The same way, he dimly thought, that he had for her three weeks ago, when he was trying to think of what to _say_. 

            He felt like something in him was breaking as she started to tremble, and he closed his eyes, shame welling up even as it broke more.  “Marlé,” he breathed, trying to sort out how to take it back.  “I-” 

            “Shut up!” she ordered, her arms tightening for a second and loosening, almost spasmodically.  “And stop it!  I’m thinking, okay!”  Her voice was petulant, _angry_ , even, but… surprisingly not tearful. 

            “You’re not crying?”  His stomach started to uncurl. 

            “Not because I don’t want to!” she snapped.  “I’m mad enough to!  Why do you have to be such a stupid _boy_ about things?!” 

            “… _What_?” he demanded incredulously, trying to pull back to see her face. 

            “Stop that!” she insisted, tightening her arms again.  “This is the most awkward thing I’ve ever had to do, and you’re so miserable I can’t even see straight!”  She made a frustrated noised that was practically a growl in his ear.  “You’re _impossible_!” 

            The word was like a switch; suddenly he was _laughing_ , the broken pieces melting back together and sliding away from him.  _I **am** impossible,_ he decided gleefully.  That, at least, he knew was absolutely right; everyone agreed. 

            And he _liked_ that. 

            “I’m serious!” Marlé half wailed, her tone straining as her chest started to shake with choked off laughter.  “What am I supposed to do?  How’m I supposed to figure out how to say something you do so much better than me anyway, let alone when you _look at me like that_?!  It’s not fair!”  She let out another of the not sobs.  “You’re _awful_!  I can’t believe you!  That was the best chocolate tea I’ve had all _month_ and I just had to throw it on the ground to get you to level down!” 

            He laughed harder, listening to the sound resonate around the square.  Marlé _squawked_ at him; he tightened his arms around her in apology, but didn’t bother trying to stop. 

            “I can’t even be mad at anybody!” she carried on.  “It isn’t even anybody’s fault!  It’s just _you_!  You’re _wired_ all funny and heroey and scary good badass!”  She made a choking noise.  “You don’t do _anything_ little!  You don’t even _notice_ love until it’s all wrapped up in trust and loyalty and half the other stuff people only admit to in movies!” 

            _Love?_   Well, maybe if he ignored the movie comment; there wasn’t anything he could _do_ with that.  Odin had loved him, he knew… so maybe that wasn’t so big of a jump.  And looking at how things had worked out, the way he was with Marlé was pretty similar to how he and his father had been… so that could be the same.  Maybe he should ask Quatre. 

            In hindsight, Quatre might have been a better choice for this than Marlé.  He was better at details. 

            “And now I’ve said it all awkward!  Because there’s _got_ to be better words for it, but I don’t know them, and now you probably think I’m being crazy!” 

            He huffed into her hair as her breath hitched.  “Not crazy,” he defended at a more normal volume. 

            “Overdramatic,” she groused, taking the cue and bringing her own voice back down. 

            He hummed noncommittally, settling the weight of his upper body against hers, once again surprised at how… _comfortable_ it was.  Solid, and a reassurance.  _Strange…_   Six months ago, he only would have leaned his head – now, they were the same height.  Leia was tall… at least six inches taller than he was…  Little Marie had only just gained that teenager lankiness he had recently rid himself of, but even so, he thought she might outweigh him soon. 

            For all that they had started with him taking care of her, they were getting to more and more equal footing now.  It had always been headed in that direction, but… well, he had expected it to take longer. 

            But again…  it had really only been a year with Quatre, too.  Less than that, with Duo, and Trowa.  He supposed he really shouldn’t be surprised. 

            “I might have deserved the drama,” he decided after a long moment, resting his chin on her shoulder.  He _had_ just been riding his impulses wherever they led him this afternoon, hadn’t he?  _Strange…_   And as refreshingly _liberating_ as always. 

            Though, a little less drama would be… appreciated. 

            Marlé started to giggle in a helpless way.  “You _totally_ did.  Oh my _God_ , Odin, you totally just _sprung_ that on me out of _nowhere_.”  She tightened her grip on him briefly before leaning her weight fully back against him.  “You _sure_ you’re okay?” 

            “Mostly.”  He wasn’t entirely sure _what_ had just happened, if he was honest. 

            She sighed.  “You really do suck.  I was serious about how good that tea was, you know.” 

            “You didn’t have to throw it,” he pointed out. 

            “There wasn’t anywhere to set it down,” she protested. 

            “The ground?” 

            “ _Timing_ , Odin.” 

            “I’d have waited.” 

            She chuffed out an amused noise.  “Course you would’ve.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t want you to know that I care enough to say screw everything else.” 

            He smiled.  He appreciated the sentiment, but at the same time…  “You just didn’t think about it.” 

            “Nope.”  Her arms tightened briefly.  “Cause I’ve got priorities.” 

            His smile widened as warmth spread through his chest.  “I’ll get you more.” 

            She started to giggle again.  “Good.” 

-

***

-

**September 30 th 198 – Monday – Korosten, Ukraine – Afternoon**

            Colonel David Mitchell resisted the urge to cover his eyes with one hand; for some reason, this felt like it was the final fucking straw to his hope for humanity, for all that that made no sense.  It didn’t even work logistically.  The last group they had taken out had outright been a terrifyingly efficient Ukrainian mafia, and unfortunately he had _no_ idea how to start cleaning up the power vacuum and economy.  Instead of sitting still for a minute to figure that out, though, he’d rushed to the major city where it looked like the same thing was building up – if he could burn it down to the roots he could figure out the entire area for rebuilding, and that would be easier than having to repeat the whole process, right? 

            Except they hadn’t been anything alike; the cunning of the southern group may have been the real deal, but this last one was the wannabe version, with a bunch of kids playing pretend and not really breaking any human rights, while instead… 

            How the _fuck_ was he supposed to fill out the paperwork for taking possession of a _literal metric ton_ of grenades without arresting any of the stupid-asses?  Razo had managed to scare them enough with what he called his ‘Robby impersonation’ – which made the colonel decide he was _glad_ the leader hadn’t survived Cambyses – to clarify that the guy who’d shown up with all the damn things had managed to blow himself up a couple months ago. 

            That _had_ gone a long way to explain the situation, actually. 

            Unfortunately, it still left them without a person to lay the blame on, which, alongside the fact that he hadn’t made even a half-assed attempt to resolve _some_ of the prior case, made it look like they were involved with the first group.  And he couldn’t convince himself that _base stupidity_ was worth locking up a bunch of teenagers for the next decade. 

            God help him, he needed a fucking _nap_ before he could sift through this shit… 

            “Colonel-” Cassidy started as he came up to the room he’d commandeered for a study. 

            “It can _wait_ at least an hour,” he decided sharply, cutting the other man off as he opened the door. 

            “But-” 

            “Ignoring you,” he announced loudly, in a flat tone.  He was tired enough that he could probably get a REM cycle inside the next twenty minutes or so, but seriously, he wanted at _least_ an hour, and if he did it by looking pissed in his office, then maybe people would actually _think_ before trying to disturb him.  He needed to at least get a start on this before crashing for the night, because leaving it for longer would just make it worse. 

            He frowned as he shoved the door closed.  _Isn’t it usually Cassidy that forces me to take a nap when I’m hitting the end of my rope?_   Razo was usually the one doing it the past couple of weeks, but really, it wasn’t like him to-

            _. . ._

            Jake was sitting behind his desk, his head in his hands. 

            _Fuck!  Shit!_   His pulse rocketed up as the adrenaline hit his system and his exhausted mind had a freaking meltdown as it tried to put together some sort of plan. 

            For a fleeting second, he actually debated if he could back out of the room before the younger man looked up, which was just stupid – this was _Jake_.  The little shit had a nigh _supernatural_ sense of his surroundings, awake or asleep.  He was also more than capable of _catching_ him if he tried to run, and he’d learned a damn long time ago that the shithead found the notion of locked doors downright _hilarious_ in terms of barricades.  Even if he found one solid enough to keep the smaller man at bay, it would only slow him down for a few seconds as he shot out and slammed through the fucking wall next to it.  

            It took him an embarrassingly long five seconds to realize that his friend wasn’t feeling hostile, and was in fact still slumped onto the desk… and his hands had shifted to press his palms into his eyes. 

            Which meant he was doing his damndest to not cry. 

            _…Shit._   God, he really _was_ tired.  Grimacing, he threw the deadbolt and walked tentatively over to sit on the opposite side of the cheap desk he’d commandeered.  For the first time, he was actually happy about how shallow it was; for all that it was obnoxious to sort paperwork on, it meant he could reach out and rest a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  Hopefully he was only here because he’d realized just how much of an ass he’d been lately… but the blonde’s body language suggested something far worse.  

            Especially that sharp intake of breath and full body shudder that thrummed through him at being touched.  And that, despite shaking, he was still hiding his face. 

            David’s stomach dropped all the way down to his damn toes.  The last time he’d seen the man this upset, he…  He grimaced hard, shaking himself out of the funk his body was trying to fall into.  No one close to Jake was dead, or he’d have heard about it already.  Something close though, and with the way Jake’s head ran… 

            _Relena._   He couldn’t come up with anything else – and weren’t they only _just_ touching back down on Earth today?  Actually, to be all the way over here so fast after landing he must have come straight from the Berlin port instead of escorting the princess home. 

            David swallowed a lump in his throat.  _Was I wrong about Lena?  Did he finally take my advice, only to have her turn on him?_   He hadn’t thought it possible, but…  Damn it, his friend was still _shaking_ , hiding his face, not talking…

            He sighed, shifting his hand from shoulder up to card his fingers through the man’s hair.  Some of the tension in his frame disappeared at the familiar gesture, and David kept it up.  It was _dirty_.  He couldn’t have seen the inside of a bath for the better part of three days – also not a good sign.  He applied more pressure on the next stroke and scraped lightly with his nails, getting something closer to a moan in response as Jake leaned into his hand. 

            For all that he hated to be touched by strangers, if you were in his little circle of beloved the guy was a damn _cat_.  Lu had said something about touch being the same as love for Jake, once – which, when he was twenty-two, had set off some serious homophobia until he realized the little blonde brat was as good as a brother.  Grinning a bit to himself, he started to actively scrub at the guy’s scalp, which had him leaning harder…  Before he suddenly brought down his hands and gave him an exasperated look. 

            David grinned at him.  It really _was_ good to see him again.  “Hey, kid.  It’s been a while.” 

            Jake huffed out a breath.  “Yeah… sorry about that.” 

            He grimaced.  “In my defense, I couldn’t have known she was listening.” 

            Jake groaned, running his hands through his hair to try to make it stop sticking up after David’s ministrations.  He managed to do the exact opposite before giving up; he needed a haircut.  Really, whenever it got this long he ended up with, like, permanent bed head.  Jack insisted that that was why he always kept his own short enough you could almost see his scalp. 

            “I just… lost it,” the other colonel agreed.  “She was right _there_ and I just…”  He blew out another deep breath.  “Fuck, I’m _sorry_ , Dave.  I’ve been trying to work myself up to apologize for over a month now, I just kept getting so depressed about it that I needed to find something _else_ to focus on, and…” 

            “I kinda figured,” he admitted when the other man trailed off.  “Actually, I called Relena maybe a week or so after it all went down and told her to watch out for you, once I realized it was Junior’s birthday and you weren’t going to call.” 

            “Mm, she didn’t mention it… and it’s Lyle’s birthday too, now.  Nineteen years difference, but the same day, weird as that is.” 

            “I told her not to mention it,” David agreed.  “Lyle?” 

            Jake visibly brightened, sitting up straighter.  “Yeah!”  He laughed a little.  “Lu isn’t an only child anymore, Cassie worked Des around to her point of view.”  His grin broadened into a real smile.  “I’m a goddad again.” 

            “Wow,” David breathed, starting to grin himself.  He’d kinda thought Cassie would eventually talk the old man into it, personally, but he wasn’t half as close to the Noin family as Jake.  “I’ll have to give them a call,” he decided.  Snickering, he noted, “That’s a hell of an age gap for Lu.” 

            Well, at least… hopefully Lu was still around.  Jake had taught her how to go to ground hard, right?  That was why no one could find her… 

            “Yeah…  She sent them a card teasing Des, so I’d bet she’s pretty psyched about it all.” 

            His heart bounced from low in his belly up to his throat.  “She did?”  _Oh thank God!_   “She’s okay?” he demanded. 

            Jake offered him a sheepish look.  “Apparently she’s been sending him apple bars for his birthday every year she’s been missing.” 

            David groaned, because really… they should have thought of that.  That was _exactly_ the kind of subtle thing Lucrezia would do.  “We are _total_ morons,” he announced, staring up at the ceiling. 

            “A bit, yeah,” Jake agreed, though his tone was all depressed again.  “Got that shoved in my face really damn hard, while I was playing escort for Leia.” 

            “Yeah?” David asked, still looking up at the ceiling, keeping his tone casual.  Lack of eye contact and all that jazz tended to make Jake calmer about letting out secrets. 

            “Yeah…”  He sighed, and hesitated for a long moment; long enough that David decided the ceiling really _wasn’t_ interesting enough to warrant any more attention.  Instead, he forced a mildly curious look onto his face as he glanced back towards his friend. 

            Jake closed his eyes and brought a hand up to press on his forehead.  “She already _knew_ , Dave.” 

            He frowned.  “Knew what?” 

            Jake dropped his hand and stared at him incredulously.  “Lena’s known about our old friend _Tate_ since _June_.” 

            David’s breath caught.  That… that was _impossible_.  “No,” he argued breathlessly. 

            His friend’s eyes lit up with irritation, even as he lowered his voice to be sure no one outside the room could hear them.  “Apparently _Wufei_ told her.  Because the reason the Chinese wouldn’t let her meet the amplifier engineers is because they’re harboring a _gundam pilot_.” 

            David closed his eyes.  _Because Wufei Chang **would** know the truth._   Sadly, that particular loose end hadn’t ever occurred to him; probably because they’d never been able to even _guess_ where the more elusive of the two A0206 survivors might be. 

            Then the other shoe dropped as the implications hit home.  “She _hasn’t_ told anyone?” he demanded.  “She hasn’t told Zechs?” 

            A muscle in Jake’s jaw began to twitch.  “She told her noblewomen, Mai, and about half of her original guard – and _they’ve_ been trying to pick up clues from us to figure out which side _we_ will take,” he practically growled. 

            David blinked, horrified.  “No…” 

            “She’s been keeping close watch on Mu and limiting her information access since the start of July.  Though they only decided she was working for Tate specifically about a month ago.” 

            Dave frowned.  “ _You_ were limiting what information Mu could access.” 

            “Subtly,” Jake agreed.  “Then as soon as you visited, Dorothy had Hayden set everyone in the house up with profiles with restricted levels of access for everyone and the only things Mu could see were issues she had already been assigned.”  He clenched his jaw again, looking away.  “Dave… the only person Relena’s _actually_ trusted since she came back to Brussels was Dorothy, until she brought a handful of her guard and Olivia into the fold.  She and Dorothy decided to trust Lin about two months back, which was when they decided you and probably me were both in Tate’s pocket.  But when we first met her, she was convinced we would tattle on her to her brother if we got even a _hint_ of suspicion that she had come back to remove Zechs from power.”  He ran his hands over his face.  “She’s _always_ gone out of her way to subtly hide her loyalties, Dave…  Even after Amsterdam, she was keeping us at arm’s length because she couldn’t get a solid grip on where _our_ allegiance lay.  She got a damn proof of life from Maxwell almost a year ago, and she’s been using Dorothy and now Olivia to secure alliances within Romefeller and the space dynasties since Christmas.” 

            He met his eyes solidly again, a darkly amused smirk on his lips.  “She’s been _playing_ us and taking us for all we’re worth since day one.” 

            “… _Fuck_ ,” David decided after a long silence.  They’d known that Relena’s skill for deception had grown in dangerous leaps and bounds since the start of her second tour, but…  The idea that the seed had always been _so_ much deeper than that was physically painful. 

            _She’s always been able to play innocent to hide one or two radical thoughts,_ he realized.  _The girl who hid the fact that the new transfer boy at her school was a colonial terrorist._   _The pacifist daughter of Vice Foreign Minister Darlian who tried to assassinate Colonel Une at a party.  The girl who claimed to be the girlfriend of that terrorist in order to pump the resident doctor for information.  Who had talked of total pacifism while she had hidden gundams beneath her castle to fight off invaders, who had responded to being made a puppet queen by bringing Romefeller to its knees.  Who had passed off that success to Treize out of **convenience** so she could chase her brother all the way to **Libra**._  

            _Libra._   “What was her take on _Libra_?” he asked quietly.  “You didn’t… tell her, did you?” 

            “I did,” Jake admitted in a flat tone. 

            _God, **why**?_   “What’d she say?” 

            A hesitation.  “That she had failed to do exactly the same thing, and regretted it just the same.” 

            If he’d been standing, he would have collapsed.  As it was, he slumped in his chair.  “Holy shit.”  _The successful pacifist queen who considered assassination a viable option._   She’d done it over and over and over again, and yet?  No one could seem to help being stunned that she carried a sharp dagger beneath her innocent mask, waiting for just the right moment. 

            For the first time…  He realized just _how_ _stunning_ of a ruler Relena would make, if she had resources that she had optimized herself at her beck and call.  Everything she had done before winning over Jake had been adlibbed, with no more assets than what luck granted her and sheer _nerve_. 

            Damn it all, but this was one of those moments where he was _fucking_ _proud_ to be a Sanc native. 

            “Apparently it was Dorothy’s idea,” Jake continued, sighing.  “That’s how long she’s had Catalonia’s loyalty, near as I can tell.” 

            It made a terrifying degree of sense, really.  “What did you do that made her decide to loop you in?” he asked. 

            “She didn’t.  She miscalculated, and took Mai with her when she told Leia that Treize had survived – before I got the chance to see her.  And when it was only Lena, Mai, and me in the room, she assumed _I_ was the one who’d enlightened the princess, and started demanding to be put in contact.” 

            David winced.  “Ow.” 

            “Yeah,” Jake agreed in a wry tone.  “It…  Fuck.”  He scrubbed his hands through his hair, gripping fistfuls and pulling.  “I don’t think I’ve been so close to fainting since I heard Treize died.  I’m pretty sure I actually went into shock.” 

            “That happens when you get so freaked out you refuse to _breathe_ ,” David pointed out wryly.  “That one never made sense to me.” 

            “Like _I_ have any idea why I do that,” Jake groused, dropping his elbows on the desk without letting go of his hair.  “It’s stunningly _stupid_ , and it just _happens_.”  He started to giggle almost hysterically.  “Fuck, I might have passed out anyway if Mai hadn’t already been plying me with cookies.” 

            _…You’re kidding me._   He hadn’t really thought anything of it when she had asked him about Jake’s favorites back in July, but he had an idea now.  “What day did you reach the fleet, again?” 

            He laughed harder, dropping his head all the way down to the desk and letting go.  “I didn’t even notice until Lin shoved a pie in my lap and lit the candle.  I just-  I forgot!  I figured the bacon hash that morning was just Daniella getting cabin fever.  I was trying to not _think_ , I think…” 

            David groaned, leaning back.  “Well…  Twenty-two.”  He considered and shook his head.  “Twenty-one was a _hell_ of a year for you.  You’d barely acknowledged that Relena _might_ become beloved, your last birthday, and…  hell, how has it _only_ been one year?” 

            “I don’t know,” Jake mumbled into the desk.  “I’m mostly still caught on it having been the best and the worst in my life at the same time.” 

            _Yeah…  He **would** see it that way._   “I’ll ask you next year,” David decided.  He’d have to see when the next time he could take a day or two off would fall; the idea of seeing Leia in person was _exciting_.  “How was the rest of the trip?”  He made a face.  “Super awkward?” 

            Jake sighed and settled his chin on his arms.  “A little, at first, but it leveled out easy enough.”  He sat up more and smirked.  “Apparently Relena had promised Lin that he could be eight hours away from me when I found out.” 

            He burst out laughing in spite of himself, and was relieved when Jake rolled his eyes.  “Ah shit…”  He shook his head.  “Lin always _has_ been a little flighty, hasn’t he?” 

            “I think we broke him a bit,” Jake agreed happily.  “Maybe a handful of times; seems to have left a mark.”  He shook his head as if to clear it, a grimace returning.  “I can’t keep Mu; Relena only let her stay this long because she didn’t want to tip her hand.  For all that she genuinely likes her, she doesn’t want any mixed loyalties in her own home – Sarracenia is meant to be a haven, not another political playground.” 

            Mitchell nodded, watching his friend carefully now.  “I suspected as much; she’s been asking me about a transfer already.” 

            Jake’s nod looked relieved.  “Good.”  Almost immediately, however, his shoulders hitched up again.  “And I think I need to send you Carlisle; with what he knows about all of us I can’t let him go, but the little shit can’t get over his own ego.  I already demoted him, and before we headed up to Zechs I told him the only future he had is to be our janitor for the rest of his life; that he knows enough that otherwise I’d have to take him out back and put him out of his misery.” 

            David grimaced.  The younger colonel _usually_ had all the qualities you wanted in your commanding officer, but now and again someone would piss him off enough to get categorized as ‘threat’ instead of ‘mine’ and…  Jake didn’t respond to threats very well. 

            _Well, more like he handles them a little **too** well.  _

            The blonde man visibly clenched his jaw.  “I’ve _tried_ everything else short of beating him,” he growled out  “He’s a danger to any operation I try to set up because he doesn’t _listen_ , and I have him on house arrest because he’s so damn quick to brag I’m worried he might be telling outsiders about our security or politics.”  He grit his teeth, hard.  “If I was still in black ops, I would’ve shot him and claimed he was collateral months ago.” 

            _Well, shit._   Relena really _couldn’t_ afford that big of a security risk.  Still, sometimes Jake was so used to thinking in the extremes of espionage that he missed simple solutions.  Solutions a little less horrifying.  Or _permanent_.        

            On the bright side, at least he could _tell_ when he was being psychotic, and was willing to ask for help.  “Give me access to his file, I’ll see what I can come up with.” 

            Jake sighed and nodded, the tension draining back out of him.  “Thanks.  He’s not… _bad_ , you know?  Just an idiot.” 

            Which would be why the sergeant hadn’t already had an ‘accident’.  Despite having quite a few terrifying knee-jerk reactions, Jake _wasn’t_ a sociopath.  He just… 

            Well, there were some very good reasons why Jack had immediately tried to remove his sons from Odin’s custody, once he’d gotten out of the Alliance hellhole he’d been consigned to for five years.  Jake rarely acknowledged it, but his uncle had been more than a little messed up in the head, and being raised by the man had left some pretty deep scars. 

            So he’d figure out how to handle the unfortunate sergeant – well, corporal now, if Jake had really demoted him instead of enforcing the change without filing the paperwork, he’d have to check that – before Jake had a reason to really _look_ closer at the principles he was raised with and get depressed again. 

            His comments about the sanctity of the Sarracenia compound, though…  His stomach sank.  That… hurt, a bit.  “Lena’ll still let me in the house now and again?” he asked wearily. 

            Jake looked surprised, then shook his head.  “You’re fine, so long as you’re not moving in for good; we’d just limit your access the same way we have been Mu.” 

            Relief bloomed through his chest, and he could feel a tension he hadn’t been aware of before ease out of his shoulders.  He wasn’t being ostracized… and Jake’s wording implied quite a few things. 

            “And you two are okay?” he asked once he realized the other man wouldn’t finish explaining without prompting. 

            “I…”  He bit his lower lip, before nodding, his eyes distant.  “Yeah…  We really are.  She said the only reason she hadn’t told me last month was that she thought it might help me, to realize it was okay on my own.” 

            David snorted.  “She thinks a little too highly of you, you mean.” 

            “Something like that,” he agreed with a gentle smile.  “She actually tackled me and started crying when I asked her if she wanted me to leave.  Called me about three kinds of idiot before she was done.” 

            “Accurate,” David decided. 

            “Fuck you,” Jake returned in a dismissive tone, making a throwaway gesture, eyes still unfocused.  “She actually made me carry her back to our room.  The woman’s about a dozen kinds of perfect, and she’s _still_ furious that I’d even suggest she might want me gone.” 

            “That’s because _you_ are a dozen kinds of idiot and don’t deserve her,” David agreed cheerfully.  “But you’re in luck, because she doesn’t give a damn how damaged you are so long as you’re willing to father her dynasty.” 

            Jake groaned and kicked him hard in the shin.  With those fucking boots of his it would probably make for a beautiful bruise later, but Dave couldn’t help but grin harder. 

            _This_ was his best friend, finally.  In all his short, menacing, pissy glory. 

            “Seriously,” the other colonel groused.  “Did you _really_ have to go there?” 

            “Zechs is gonna _kill_ you,” he sang.  “Kill you dead and scatter the bones…” 

            “You’re cheerful,” the other man groused, kicking him again.  “Like I’ve even done anything to piss him off yet.” 

            “But you’re _thinking_ about it,” David exclaimed happily.  “Does the little virgin boy want to ask his more experienced friend?” he suggested with a naughty grin. 

            Jake’s eyes narrowed, even as his cheeks burned bright red.  “Only if you want me to _beat_ you again,” he growled. 

            “Aw, you know you want to know.” 

            “Beat you with a damn baseball bat,” he warned, standing up – taking a big sheaf of paperwork with him.  “And maybe leave this bullshit grenade case instead of taking custody of it and tossing it at Lena’s people.” 

            David blinked a few more times before grinning broadly.  “Mum’s the word, then; I’m sure you already did all sorts of research online.” 

            Jake _flung_ the stack back onto the desk, making a loud _thwak_.  “Leaving it.” 

            “I meant research on romantic date spots!” he declared, switching gears.  “Like parks, and Paris, and-”

            “You are full of _such_ bullshit,” his best friend complained, but he did pick the papers back up as he started heading for the door.  “Just have the rest of this forwarded to me once your people have all the info typed in.  Eat something and go to sleep – you look like shit.” 

            “Oh like you can talk!” David called after him, grinning broadly as he realized that yeah, he _could_ be done for the day, if he didn’t have to deal with that headache. 

            “I didn’t hurt him, Cassidy,” he heard Jake mutter as he stepped back out into the hall. 

            “You kicked me!” David protested, still grinning. 

            “He’s full of shit,” Jake dismissed easily. 

            “I am not!” he argued, trying not to laugh. 

            “So full of shit you can see it in his eyes,” Jake persisted happily.  “By the way, I have an opening if you ever want to come back into the Princess’ service.” 

            “Thief!” 

            “Can’t steal him unless he’s property, and if he is, then I’d have to turn you in to yourself,” Jake continued happily.  “Seriously though; the guys miss you, and living with Mailin is a fucking riot.” 

            “…Isn’t that the crazy Aussie Mitchell banged when he visited you guys?” Cassidy asked tentatively. 

            Jake guffawed, then started laughing so hard he doubled over.  “ _Dave_!” 

            “She broke into my room and did a striptease, how was I supposed to turn that down?” David defended, trying not to laugh himself.  “She talked dirty in _Hebrew_ , Jake!  _Hebrew_!  Like she’d been reading the Torah her whole life!” 

            Jake just groaned.  “I don’t know why I’m even surprised anymore…” 

-

***

-

**Szczecin, Poland**

            _“I just…  It feels like coming home, and I can stay in touch with everyone with the phones, and you said-”_  

            “I still stand by what I said, Keo,” Quatre agreed happily as he flipped through details on his tablet.  “I’m not going to feel all abandoned about it.  If you remember, I was _expecting_ you all to leave this behind.” 

            _“Well, I might want to come back later,”_ Keothany hedged.  _“I just want to try this out for a little while first.  Either way, I’m keeping the phone.  So if I get drunk off my ass, you might get weird texts in the middle of the night.”_  

            He laughed.  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he agreed.  “You figure out where you’re going to stay yet?” 

            _“Well, I’m in a hostel right now… and they said that it would be okay if I stayed there until I got a job.  I figured I’d get a P.O. box tomorrow, once I cleared it with you.”_  

            “You all need to stop looking to me for approval if you want to be independent,” he pointed out wryly.  “But your plan makes sense.” He tipped his head to one side as he considered one offer, and tapped the screen to counter it.  “Do you remember the name of the hostel?” 

            _“Um…  No, but I have the business card somewhere,”_ Keo admitted, sounding sheepish. 

            “Well, I’d appreciate it if you could text it to me when you get a chance,” Quatre decided.  “Is the location good?” 

            _“Yeah, it’s pretty central without being in a bad part of town.  Why?”_  

            “I’m thinking about buying it.”  He’d been looking more into hotel chains, but really…  Hostels might be even better. 

            Either way, he’d managed to get into some of the other solid identities he had stashed, so frankly, he had the bankroll to do both and then some random others.  _Though, if I’m doing all that…_  

            He wondered how long it would take Odin or Marlé to make up a shell corporation or two for him to claim. 

            _“If you do, I totally want part of the top floor as an apartment,”_ Keo announced, tone jaunty.  _“And I could totally run it, and be my own boss, maybe?  It really is a good location, and rent can get pretty high out here.”_  

            Quatre snorted.  “Give me the name and I’ll think about it.”  Stockholm was enough of a traveling hub that it might be worthwhile… especially if it was a chain.  And really, if he was trying to spread out the ownership so nothing became to focal on him…  “Or maybe you’ll inherit some forgotten relative’s life insurance and _you_ will buy it.” 

            Keo laughed.  _“I can work with that,”_ the other man decided happily.  _“You’re kinda my hero right now, you know that, right?”_  

            “You don’t loose all your minion rights just because you decided to run away,” Quatre returned, grinning like mad.  “If we do this, just always keep a room or two aside for anyone of ours, or new friends we end up making.  After all, right now it’s just us, but there’s a pretty good chance our network will keep expanding.”  To serve his purposes, it needed to be available as a safe house for any of theirs, or eventually, probably Sally’s people. 

            _“Well, duh,”_ his friend agreed happily.  _“That’s the whole reason we got Rubato started, yeah?”_  

            “A hole in one.”  That was their cover story, at least – Revenant Rubato, a new age sort of social networking group.  Overall, so far they were working as one in truth, which made it easier to handle the façade.  They would just hide behind the notion that it was invite only – make up some bullshit criteria.  Raph had managed to get an official website and all that going as of last week and was babysitting it, trying to see how much attention it gained. 

            If he really did end up opening it up to other rebel factions, it’d be good to have a way to theoretically join.  They had decided to claim that the group had been running for some six months before now, but that they hadn’t decided to widen the circle via a webpage until recently. 

            He’d have to run through the details of what he’d need to make an account that looked like someone’s considerable life savings – along with a death certificate and will naming Keo as the sole surviving beneficiary – by Odin and his little apprentice.  Heero was a genius when it came to digital document fraud, and personally, he’d never tried to work something from the ‘death of a relative’ angle.  He’d have to look into how to make a death certificate… 

            _“Okay, well, I’m going to go get something to eat and dig through my backpack for that card.  I guess I’ll catch you later.”_  

            “Later.”  He ended the call and smiled down at the phone.  _He sounds **good**._  

            He had insisted, before they fully went through with following him around across the country trying to subvert the Regime, that the guys needed to take a week or two to travel and form an opinion about what they had missed.  Some of them had gone alone, and a few with groups…  Or, in Keo’s case, had started off in a group before getting attached enough to an area to want to spend more time there.  Some had come back immediately at the minimum one week rule he set down and others were taking their time…  But no matter what they decided, they _had_ gotten the phones set up with Marlé’s custom operating system to network each other reliably and include emergency protocols.  The girl had even programmed multiple layers of emergency modes, so different passwords would set off particular effects: for if they just wanted to know if someone was nearby to lend a hand, versus life threatening. 

            Hearing how happy Keo was, Quatre was glad that he _had_ insisted.  He’d been dubious of their lack of interest in forming new lives away from him from the start; now, at least, they were recognizing that they had options.  

            His phone let out a noise like a gong as another counter offer came through, and he considered for a moment before forwarding the message to Erran; until he was willing to contact his sisters, he was going to continue using the cunning jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur as a lawyer.  The man had been invaluable to Instructor H during the construction of Sandrock, and then again, to himself, when he built Wing Zero.  He possessed such a surgical level of precision when it came to the written word, that, when combined with his fantastic lack of compassion and complete absence of a moral compass, made him a perfect chief of operations.  The only remaining issue was loyalty; but while Erran Ahern had never demonstrated a deep loyalty for anything aside from his own skin, he had always held fast to his contracts. 

            Sometime during 195 he remembered having decided to see if he could lure the man into a more permanent situation.  However, he had wanted to put off admitting that Quatre himself had been nearly ten of the man’s best employers over the past three years – learning that you had missed that sort of situation had a way of rising a man’s hackles, even when only mutual good had come of it.  When he’d returned to space after Sanc’s fall, he’d intended to approach him as CEO of the Winner Corporation for a consultation to sweeten the pot and keep him on contract for another year or two before suggesting a healthy salary alternative in return for exclusion agreements against Winner competitors, but… 

            Well, then _Libra_ had happened.  Even if he had had any way of contacting the man while on the run, only a fool would call a shark for help while actively bleeding out. 

            In any event, while the man had hardly become a pauper in the past three years, he also hadn’t done nearly as well without the Winner Heir’s patronage, and had promptly accepted the offer Quatre extended him upon admitting the referral had come from an identity the teenager had used before.  Generally speaking, if you treated someone well – and paid him _just_ above his expectations – you gained some degree of dedication. 

            He had just turned his screen back off and was reaching for a pen to sketch out a few ideas when the phone started to ring again.  He pursed his lips, considering – it was a number he didn’t recognize and certainly wasn’t local – before giving a mental shrug.  “Hello?” 

            There was a pause long enough that he started to debate if the caller had simply hung up.  Then a man announced, _“We met on a battlefield in 195, then went back to your place.  There were belly dancers.  Where were we?”_  

            Quatre’s lips widened into a broad grin.  “The Sahara,” he answered easily.  “Adashia.  I was surprised how honest you were, and you told me you had a life motto.” 

            Duo chuckled.  His voice was definitely deeper now; but then, his own had tone had dropped as well.  _“‘I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie.’  The name’s Kasey, for the record.”_  

            Quatre let out a little laugh.  “Cat,” he pointed out by way of agreement.  “With a C.  Odin said you’ve gotten married?” 

            Duo hummed an affirmative.  _“Found the right girl, and just couldn’t let her go,”_ he announced.  _“Everything’s gone up and down a few times, really, but I’ve been okay.  You?  Odin didn’t actually tell me anything other than your phone number_.” 

            He closed his eyes.  “It…  It’s been bad.”  _A living nightmare._   “But the awful parts are done with, now, and it all looks to be up from here.”  _The good thing about hitting absolute rock bottom is that after that, the only way you can **go** is up._   “I’d rather not talk about it.”  He tried to grasp for anything at all that Odin had mentioned to change the topic.  “I hear that your little brother is the boy my little brother is so jealous of.” 

            Duo groaned.  _“I’m seriously glad we never did that shit; Amos has to be just as bad as your kid brother.  It makes me want pull my hair out.  The girl’s cool and all, and Amos keeps insisting he’s not **interested** in anything more than friendship, but every time she mentions the name ‘Cory’ he fluffs up like a pissed off cat!”_  

            Quatre just laughed.  “That sounds about right.”  Cory had never made any contradicting claims, but the boy had never tried to hide the fact that he practically worshiped Odin’s charge. 

            _“I don’t get it.”_    

            “I do,” he admitted.  “But I’m not going to lie and say it’s not silly either.”  He leaned back in his chair.  “They ought to either get over it or do something about it before too long; just leave them to sort it out.”  Duo snorted, and he grinned again, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the white noise of the call instead of what he could feel around him.  It didn’t actually work that way, but sometimes he could trick his mind into buying into the placebo for a little while.  “Enough of that, though.  You’re in the Netherlands, right?” 

            _“Amsterdam,”_ Duo agreed.  _“And not in the nice part of town.”_  

            _Interesting._   “You know the local gangs, then?”  He’d been curious about how that culture worked out since he’d heard of the city civilians taking justice into their own hands, shortly after he left Africa. 

            The other man snorted.  _“I **lead** one of them, so yeah.  I’m, like, some sort of Robin Hood Boogeyman.”_  

            A suspicion sparked in Quatre’s brain.  “Which one?” 

            _“Devil’s Get.”_

            He licked his lips, trying desperately not to laugh.  “So _you’re_ the Dutchman?” 

            Duo groaned again.  _“Shit, not you too…”_  

-

***

-

**October 1 st 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Vaughn let out a contented sigh as he pulled the car into the garage.  “Welcome home.” 

            “Thanks for the company,” Jake repeated tiredly.  “I think I would have had to stop and sleep somewhere if I’d gone on my own.” 

            “Aw, no fuss, Boss,” the man returned easily as he shifted into park and turned the engine off.  “I’ve just been sitting around waiting for you all to come back; practically a paid vacation.”  He ran a reverent hand over the steering wheel.  “And making a run with this little girl is always a treat.” 

            Jake grinned in acknowledgement; he’d let the sergeant open up the engine a bit for the hell of it on their way back from Ukraine.  Vaughn’s mastery of the little sports coupe at high speeds had been deeply soothing in a visceral way, helping to loosen up the knot in his chest. 

            Enjoying _not_ being the one in control was… probably something he needed to do more often. 

            It had been two weeks since Leia had let the cat out of the bag, and still, he felt as though he was waiting to wake up.  He’d hoped that talking to David would ground him, and it had, a little, but…  It was still damned surreal.  The fear had disappeared in the blink of an eye, but the self-loathing he’d heaped up over the past few months was taking longer to break down. 

            Relena…  Relena had made it clear she was willing to wait it out, accepting his presence when he was near, but not pushing for anything at all.  He was glad she seemed to understand enough that he didn’t have to explain what the problem was; because hell if _he_ knew.  He was starting to think that the problem was that there _wasn’t_ a problem anymore, and if that was what his brain was doing, he’d reached a whole new level of sad. 

            He was just… numb. 

            “You okay?” Vaughn asked quietly, making no move to get out of the car.  “The sun’ll be up in another hour or so.  I know a good twenty-four seven café that’s not too far – we could head back out instead.  I know _I_ could do with some pie and coffee, if nothing else.”  His smile was easy.  “Get you feeling a little more human before you have to settle back into the groove of the castle, huh?” 

            “No.”  After a moment he offered his friend a sheepish smile, realizing that had come out a little… sharp. 

            The other man, however, was smirking.  “Too many people?” 

            He glared at him half-heartedly before rolling his eyes.  “Yeah.”  Dealing with people he didn’t know meant he had to choose a persona… and he just didn’t have the energy.  Vaughn might not be as close to him as Lin and Mai, but their friendship had always carried a refreshingly candid note; it was unusually _easy_ to just mirror the man’s easygoing nature when it was just the two of them.  Though…  “Are you hungry?” 

            Vaughn waved in a casually dismissive way.  “Yeah, but Addie’s food is better, and she’ll have breakfast churning out soon, if she doesn’t already.”  He hummed for a moment before announcing, “I’ve got a couple co-op games that are really distracting, if you want.  Not your usual type of thing, but fun enough.” 

            Jake closed his eyes.  “Just how bad do I look?” 

            “It’s not so much how you look as how you move,” he corrected hurriedly.  “But?  Depressed as all hell.”  He shifted in his seat.  “Not to pry or anything, but do you need to talk about it?  I mean, I know you’ve got the big tough boss guy image to hold, but…”  He trailed off with a grimace.  “I don’t know, I just figured I oughta say something.  Forget it.” 

            “It’s… okay,” Jake told him.  “I…”  He grimaced himself.  “I have literally no reason to be upset or anything anymore, but I’m having a hell of a time convincing myself.” 

            The other man’s grin was quick.  “Need to hit refresh, huh?” 

            He grinned back, feeling a little lighter.  “The physical version seems a bit harder than tapping a button,” he agreed.  “Any suggestions?” 

            “Do something you’ve never done before,” he announced immediately.  When Jake blinked in surprise, he made an excitedly sweeping gesture.  “Clean slate, right?  Go do something that you can’t link back to before.  Stop brooding and tell the past to go to hell because you’ve got better shit to do.  Stop yourself from looking back for long enough that it’s like it all happened to somebody else.” 

            “Yeah?”  He sounded very... absolute with that bit of advice. 

            Vaughn made a face.  “I had some major drama crap go down when I was in secondary.  Sometimes it’s better to stop trying to fix something and just write new stuff over top of it instead.  Works out a lot better than most people think, usually.” 

            “Huh.” 

            “Staying still and trying to sort it can just leave you stuck, you know?” 

            It sounded… _liberating_.  “Yeah.”  So if he tossed aside all the mess of the past couple of months…  What did he want to do? 

            It was stunningly simple. 

            “You think any florists are open yet?” 

-

***

-

**October 2 nd 198 – Saturday – Szczecin, Poland**

            “Cat’s phone!” Skye announced brightly once he’d connected the call.  “I’m playing voicemail today, what’s up?” 

            _“…Doesn’t he have normal voicemail?”_

            He laughed, pulling the phone from his ear to read the caller ID – _Odin_.  “It was a condition,” he explained cheerfully.  “He hasn’t slept in three days and there’s no _actual_ reason for him to be doing that.  We had an intervention, but it was easier to make concessions than sedate him.”  Quatre had said that Odin was basically his best friend, though…   _And wasn’t it Odin’s little sister that made the network to start with?_  “Is there anything I can help you with?” he asked curiously.  “Or do you just want me to tell him you called?” 

            The man on the other end of the line made a non-committal noise.  _“He was trying to get a hold of me earlier.  I was out of service range.  Do you know what that was about?”_  

            “Mm…  Not concretely?” Skye admitted.  “I want to say it was about paperwork.”  He thought for a moment, tapping his lips.  “He wanted to see if he could tempt you into a partnership?  That or he already had you on board and just needed to hash out details.  There was something specific about paperwork, but I wasn’t helping out with that, so I don’t know more.” 

            _“Aa.”_   He made an amused noise that wasn’t quite a laugh.  _“How long will it be until he has his phone back?”_  

            “Oh…”  He checked the time.   “At least another nine hours.” 

            He got an actual chuckle, this time.  _“Nine hours?  How long has it been already?”_  

            “A while.  He had to make some concessions too, and it’s not my fault if he was too sleep-deprived to negotiate worth a damn.” 

            Another genuine-sounding laugh.  _“Point taken.”_   A pause.  Then, _“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”_  

            Skye grinned.  “Guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself.  I’ll tell him to call you back?” 

            Odin hummed an agreement… and the line went dead. 

            “Rude.”  He rolled his eyes and jammed the phone back in his pocket.  There hadn’t really been anything left to _say_ , but still. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – Devil’s Quarter – Evening**

            **_“I believe this was a very productive visit, yes, despite how abruptly it was put into action; certain information came to light that, due to a number of recent cyber attacks on the government’s servers, required a face-to-face meeting.  Unfortunately, most of that information is still sensitive.  What I can tell you, however, is that whomever this group is, they are currently avoiding a confrontation; and what that gives us is time, which is an invaluable resource for our martial forces.”_**

            Mik whistled low through his teeth as he lined up his next shot.  “She’s smooth.” 

            Duo snorted.  “She’s a politician,” he countered.  “She has a lot of practice.” 

            Ruben frowned up at the TV, leaning into his cue.  “But doesn’t her jumping like that for him mean they’re actually, like, working together?  For real?” 

            “You’re being stupid again, Benny,” Markos teased happily.  “Why’d we decide to let you have beer, again?” 

            “Fuck you, man.  Fuck.  _You_.” 

            “Thanks, no thanks.” 

            **_“-allowed us to reconnect with a number of strong allies we have outside of the Earth-Sphere, and solidify a plan of action.”_**

            “Shut up, I’m trying to listen,” Christiaan hollered from the bar. 

            “Read the captions, dumbass!” someone random called.  “This ain’t exactly a newsroom, ya know!” 

            “Those are in _English_ , asshole!” 

            Duo’s mouth twitched.  He… actually hadn’t realized that. 

            **_“-tragedy of three years ago.  By keeping all lines of communication open-”_  **

            “That’s because she’s _speaking in English_ you illiterate shit!” 

            _Ah hell._   Hopefully he wouldn’t be breaking up a bar fight in the next few minutes; he was kinda curious to know if she was going to go into anything worthwhile in the middle of all her talking without saying anything. 

            **_“-at the negotiation table before a single shot is fired.”_**

            “-with the program or get the fuck out of my house,” the bartender was growling out.  “I don’t _know_ you – what the hell are you even doing here, anyway?” 

            _Did he actually just call it his house, or am I mixing my French again?_   Or, really, Jérémy had a tendency to mix his languages too…  ‘house’ hadn’t been in Dutch, or English, for that matter, but he wasn’t actually sure what it _had_ been… 

            He wanted to say French, though? 

            **_“-important to realize that none of these past horrors have been the will of the colonies themselves.”_**

            _True, that._   Not that the civilians didn’t agree with the ideas, at the time – but people were stupid, as a rule.  It had taken him a couple years to really learn that, but you really couldn’t expect much from sheep. 

            “You have _no_ idea what part of town you’re even in, do you?” Jérémy snarled. 

            _God damn it, Jérémy, is **no one** ever going to let that drop?_   And he was slipping more, but it wasn’t French.  Quatre sounded French today, _that_ was why he was thinking French… and he couldn’t remember if the bartender even spoke more than Belgium pigeon anyway…  _Swiss, maybe?_  

            **_“-spoken with the elected officials of all five of the Colonial Nations, and agreements have been made. While I am not at liberty to discuss the details-”_**

            He grabbed Ruben by a belt loop as he tried to stalk over to help hassle the out-of-towners.  Which… really _was_ kind of weird, come to think of it.  Saying that Jérémy’s little pub was off the beaten path was kinda an understatement. 

            **_“-reintegration of those we thought lost.”_**

            Warmth rushed through him and he caught the oh so subtle but _there_ smugness in the princess’ expression.  It was the same damn glimmer in her eyes that she got when she conned Heero into thinking something was _his_ idea instead of hers.  _She’s talking about a whole lot more than Cambyses._   He smirked, glad he’d managed to send her his little note last year. 

            And it was good, too, to hear she was behind the softening touch the media had started taking for the shit that had gone down in Africa.  That made the whole thing a lot less… well, less suspicious, at least.  He thought he’d have to know someone who’d been there and come back out before he could get his head around the idea that the psychos had really been ‘victims of circumstance’.  Seemed a little too convenient, from where he was standing, but Amsterdam was a long fucking way away. 

            But Relena didn’t support shit unless she really meant it.  She could be freaking _crazy_ about playing with dangerous shit, but she wouldn’t push for forgiveness if there wasn’t a damn good reason.  She’d still been crazy about Heero after New Edwards and friendly with Quatre after the mess with Wing Zero, but she’d never said a damn word about her brother and the Americas.  And maybe she was playing nice with her brother too, but there were interviews on record where she straight up refused to comment on shit Zechs had done. 

            It probably wouldn’t stand out if it weren’t the _only_ thing she ever refused to talk about.  She always said _something_ otherwise, but those questions, she seriously acted like she couldn’t hear them. 

            **_“But for every example we have of a man in Cambyses who stood against the tide and protected others from the horrors committed in the Sahara, for every slum lord who has risen above their situation to take care of those around them, we have ten more instances in which no one-”_**

            _Damn it, why does everyone have to keep **talking** about that?!_  

            Melissa bumped her hip into his playfully as she set down two fresh pitchers of beer on the closest of their tables.  “Someone has an admirer,” she sang. 

            “It just needs to get dropped,” he groaned, covering his eyes with one hand.  “If everyone would just _drop it_ , it would get forgotten inside a week.” 

            His wife made an amused noise, shaking her head.  “Ego, love.”  He frowned at her, and she gestured back to the screen.  He focused. 

            **_“-or child face, I have seen three more acts of kindness, despite the brutality we face in the next breath.”_**

            She was wrapping up her little spiel on a happy note, then, and apparently he’d missed something.  “What?” 

            ‘Liss shook her head and gestured again.  “I suppose I should be thrilled, but _look_ at her; she’s carrying herself higher.” 

            “…Okay?”  Maybe a little, but it wasn’t weird or anything.  The princess often got caught up in the emotions of her own speeches. 

            “That necklace is new,” she pointed out.  “It’s a more complicated design than she normally wears, more delicately spun, and her earrings and bracelet match it exactly; it’s a set.” 

            “…Okay?” 

            Melissa snickered, leaning fully into him.  “It’s obviously a _gift_ , dummy.” 

            He frowned, bringing his arms around her and focusing on her fully.  “What makes you think she didn’t get it herself?” 

            “Yeah,” Mik agreed, chalking his cue.  “She’s a princess – fancy jewelry’s kinda what they _do_ , isn’t it?” 

            ‘Liss rolled her eyes.  “Only a man would have bought that.” 

            Mik frowned again, focusing back on the screen as Relena laughed at something the interviewer said.  “I don’t know,” he argued.  “Seems like something she’d like.” 

            It was, really.  All delicate detailing in bright metals and tiny gems; not gaudy, but something that Melissa would probably like, if he could afford it. 

            She started giggling into his chest as he nodded thoughtfully.  “Oh my God, _exactly_!” 

            He shared a look with Mik, and the other hand shrugged helplessly.  Maybe ‘Liss _wouldn’t_ like it?  It was nice, but maybe something with stronger colors?  She’d focused on it, though, which meant maybe she’d like _something_ if it wasn’t too hard to swing…  She’d be mad if he actually got something expensive, at least, because it’d be wasteful. 

            “Just trust me, okay?” Melissa insisted, still shaking faintly with laughter.  “That’s definitely boyfriend jewelry.” 

-

***

-

**October 4 th 198 – Friday – Space – Soleil Coalition Fleet**

 

 

_-_

_Hey Tate,_

_I feel like I’m supposed to say sorry… but I’m not.  At least, not about the things I ought to apologize for.  So, I’m not.  I also figure you know me well enough to figure out what’s been going on too, and how much changed since the last time we talked.  Honestly, I’m starting to think maybe you understand it more than I do, even with me going all radio silence on you.  I think I probably need to sit down and talk with you for real once we have a chance and sort through it all, but...  Well, I don’t know when that’ll be; and chances are, a little more time will sort it out anyhow._

_For now, you’re getting this through Michael just to keep shit from getting too complicated – your old address got shut down because you didn’t use it for so long, and let’s be honest, the waters are pretty fucking muddy right now.  Think about it, and get back to me in a handful of weeks, maybe?  Until then, we can make Mike play middle man._

_…I do miss you, you know.  You took me in when I was little, and protected me like the older brother I should have been to my own blood.  I hate that it’s been so long that it feels like you’re more of an idea than a person – a thing I have to handle, instead of the family you’ve always been.  I know I’ve fucked some stuff up, but… well, I think you might’ve done the same thing, if it was you, so…  I don’t know.  It’s hard.  I’m trying, okay?  You’ve been my anchor through all the shit the world has been for the past thirteen years, kept me as sane and safe as I’d let you… and if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I would’ve met anyone else I’ve cared about since.  Everything around us has crumbled to dust so many times now, but you… you’ve always been there for me, guiding me and supporting me and **always** giving me safe harbor.  If I had wanted out of all this sick shit I’ve surrounded myself in, I know you would have bailed me in an instant.  Hell, you’ve done exactly that more than once, and I’m not sure I ever actually thanked you for it.  So…  Thanks.  _

_But however much I miss you, I can’t change what is; and maybe learning to love other people, gaining new loyalties, is… just a part of growing up.  At least, that sounds like something you’d say.  I’m…  I’m happy, even while my stomach’s twisting in knots.  Hell, I always went to you for advice, and maybe that’s what I miss most of all.  Maybe us not really being able to **talk** is what got this all twisted into such a knot in the first place.  _

_I regret nothing; I refuse to regret the things I have gained, even if it’s cost me more than I can really make sense of.  And… well, maybe I’m making this all out to be more than it is, like Mike keeps telling me, and I haven’t lost anything other than time and the happiness I might have had these past months, instead of the dread I’ve buried myself in.  Maybe I’ll be able to look back at this in a year or two and laugh – or maybe it’ll be a wound, but one we’ll get over with time and work.  Just… let me know, I guess._

_Otherwise, attached is a letter from someone who has missed you far more than me.  She…  I remember those hours before I learned the truth after the Fall; the disbelief and the despair that you had died, and how devastating it was.  And I remember the world-tilting, **crushing joy** at finding out it was a lie.  Remember that she had nearly three years between the two, to grieve and come to terms and find a way to move forward again, but…  It’s hard, okay?  Don’t forget how fucking **hard** this kind of shit is, and how breakable it can make somebody.  _

_Don’t put her in a hard place if she won’t tell you something.  There’s good reasons – honestly, I think she might be smarter about all this shit than both of us put together, but hell if that hasn’t always been true._

_I was going to try to end this with something like closure, but I’m a fucking mess and it’s the other letter you really want to read anyway, so I’m out.  Take care of yourself, and get back to me when you can._

_Váli_

_-_

 

 

-

***

-

**October 11 th 198 – Friday – Szczecin, Poland**

            “Are we, like, renting this place for the month?  Or did Cat actually follow through on that demand to buy me a mansion?  Because I don’t think a hotel counts unless we gut it and fill it with amazing things.  The empty halls are either something out of a horror movie or a kickass action flick, and it’s easier to believe it’s the not the first option when I know I could redesign if I really wanted.” 

            “I know, right?”  Skye actually _bounced_.  “Also, how are you in my kitchen and where have you been my whole life?” 

            The redhead gently transferred a bag onto the table and waltzed over to open the fridge before glancing back over her shoulder at them.  “Not your kitchen, is what _and_ where.  If it’s not mine, it’s not anyone’s.  I claimed dibs, like, a month ago.”  She looked back in the fridge and made a disgusted noise.  “Also, this is the third definitely lived in kitchen I haven’t found soy sauce in – I’m not sure we can be friends.” 

            “Under the microwave,” Don offered quickly, before Skye could get going. 

            She practically cooed.  “Ooh, Kikkoman!  I take it back, you’re cool.” 

            “I’m _in_ it, therefore, my kitchen,” Skye argued, eyes narrowing. 

            “Well, nine tenths of the law and all, so I guess,” she agreed distractedly, opening the fridge back up.  “Anything in here you’d recommend?” 

            “You… came looking for sauce without food?”  That… didn’t make sense. 

            “It was a test,” she deadpanned, not looking up.  “You passed.” 

            “What?” 

            “Something, something, quality control, feed me now, please and thank you,” she rattled off in the same deadpan, shutting the fridge and crouching down to root through a cupboard.  “Do you have a rice cooker?” 

            “Who exactly are you, again?” 

            “We cook our rice over fire, like civilized people,” Skye retorted happily _instead_ of helping. 

            “Currently nameless, and I’m a lazy heathen, damn it.”  She stood back up and eyed him critically before focusing pointedly on Skye.  “If I bat my eyes and look adorable, will you cook me dinner?” 

            “What are you doing here?” Don tried again. 

            “Besides the obvious?” she asked dryly. 

            “Only if you’re desperate,” Skye decided. 

            “Define desperate.” 

            “You’re willing to spare my feelings and tell me it’s edible desperate.” 

            The teenager groaned and turned back around to yank open the freezer. 

            “Not to be rude,” Don announced irritably.  “But who the fuck _are_ you?” 

            She tensed and shifted her stance almost instantaneously, then visibly forced her muscles to relax, shut the freezer door, and twisted back around to glower at him.  “You don’t _really_ think I just waltzed in here.”  It wasn’t a question. 

            “That’s not what I _asked_ ,” Don snapped back.  He didn’t care if he was being an asshole; he didn’t like people in _his_ space without a damn explanation. 

            “So, introduction, or get the fuck out,” Skye translated, stretching like a cat to hide the motion of loosening the holsters for the knives he kept along his lower arms.  “I’m kinda aboard the ‘what the fuck are you doing here’ train – I was just giving you time to cook something up.” 

            “Skye,” Don ground out warningly. 

            “Don’t even start, my puns are fantastic.”  His eyes flicked to the bag next to him.  “Also, what’s in the bag?” 

            The girl rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and leaning back against the fridge.  “Weapons of mass destruction,” she informed them in a dry tone.  “Or at least, it will be once it’s done.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “And seriously, the name thing is a sore topic right now.  I just stormed out of Cat’s room because he and my brother are rewriting my life story _after_ he let me design it all pretty last month.  Because _now_ it’s not good enough.  And I don’t really care if it makes sense or if he had no idea he was being an asshole, but Odin just ignored everything I did, confirmed that it’s all kinda pointless, _and_ says I can’t keep being Marlé.  And I’ve been Marlé for long enough that that’s actually upsetting, which is dumb, but _still_.  And they were too busy talking shop and finishing each other’s sentences to bother explaining _why_.” 

            _Marlé.  Oh._   Well, now at least he had a face to match the name.  Even if that apparently was… a thing. 

            “Odin’s a douche,” Skye offered, settling his arms back on the table and relaxing somewhat. 

            “A kickass _douche_ ,” she agreed, making her way back over and slumping down across from them.  She sniffled a little and dropped her head to the wood.  “And he cut my hair!” 

            “It… looks good?” Don offered, not really sure what else to say. 

            “I have _bangs_!” she wailed into the tabletop. 

            “Oh come on, bangs are badass,” Skye wheedled, stretching his arms out to press his fingertips to the crown of her head.  “You can do all sorts of dramatic cool stuff with bangs.” 

            “ _Bull_.” 

            Skye pouted.  “Quatre has bangs.” 

            “They’re not bangs if they go past your eyes,” she argued, still not looking up. 

            Skye poked at her again – less of a touch this time, more of a nudge.  “So…  We’ll get your official pictures for your ID done now – no one looks good in those anyway, so no one will care – and then the problem solves itself in two months.” 

            She sniffed loudly and shifted enough to peer up at him suspiciously.  “You think all he cares about are the ID pictures?” 

            “Well, probably?”  He frowned.  “I’m guessing the point is to make you look different?” 

            She brought her hands up from under the table and set them under her chin, looking up to meet Skye’s eyes more solidly.  “Yeah.  Anybody who’s looking for me thinks I was going blonde.” 

            Don frowned, considering the deep red wine burgundy of the girl’s hair.  It looked good, but…  “That’s really obviously not a natural hair color.”  Skye tossed him an annoyed look, but he shrugged.  It was better somebody point it out now than later, right? 

            Instead of getting more upset though, she smirked, sitting up more.  “But it’s popular.  And my new ID is gonna say I’m blonde.” 

            Skye’s smirk grew to match hers.  “Bait and switch, I like it.  What’s your actual hair color?” 

            She looked downright devious now.  “Copper red.” 

            Skye cackled.  “Oh, _awesome_ , even better.” 

            Her smile turned a little more happy instead of mischievous.  “Odin’s going to list his as his real color, but stay blonde.  He says anyone who caught wind of us will assume he changed it.” 

            “Your brother sounds like slightly less of a douche now,” Skye informed her solemnly.  “Or at least he’s a douche with good ideas.” 

            She started to giggle.  “He’s really good with this stuff.  Just…”  She sighed and sat up the rest of the way, huffing out a breath to ruffle the hair over her eyes.  “Bangs.  Not cool.” 

            …They really did look good, though.  Fashionable, and done at a slant – they were layered, and there weren’t any longer strays sneaking out of her blood red ponytail. 

            Skye sat back too, making a show of considering her face.  “I’ve got some ideas.  They haven’t made the new stuff yet, right?” 

            She scowled.  “No.  They’re just _planning_ my life for me right now – they’ll let me help actually _make_ it.” 

            He nodded decisively.  “Glasses.” 

            She frowned.  “Glasses?” 

            “Glasses will make you look really cool.  And your eyes less obvious – they’re pretty distinct, on their own.  I’ll help you pick them out, it’ll be great.” 

            Her expression was doubtful.  “Maybe.” 

            He pouted.  “Come on, when I’m done, you’ll look _awesome_.” 

            She glowered.  “ _Bangs_.” 

            Skye pursed his lips.  “I can give Quatre bangs.” 

            “…That really shouldn’t make it better.” 

            “But it totally does, doesn’t it?” 

            She started to giggle again. 

            Don sighed, leaning back.  _Time to either detach or make a peace offering,_ he decided  “I have a couple lasagna in my freezer.”  She perked up at that, and he reached out a hand to shake.  “I’m Donciano.” 

            The girl took his hand with a smile… and an automatic sounding pleasantry in Italian. 

            “Yeah… not so much.”  Despite all his father’s attempts, he spoke maybe ten words of the language. 

            “Oh, sorry.”  She pursed her lips, tilting her head.  “You sound…” 

            “American?  Yeah.”  It felt like another lifetime, though.  Sometimes he wondered if it was a good or a bad thing, that it felt like everything from before had happened to a different person.  He hadn’t had any family for a good ten years before the Fall, and hadn’t ever kept a girlfriend for long enough to matter… so while it had still been terrifying, the evacuation had just been… something that happened.  Almost like moving – except all he’d had were the saddlebags he’d snatched off his bike when the air sirens started to wail. 

            It… hadn’t been good, but it hadn’t been all bad either – he didn’t have to pay off his student loans anymore. 

            The relocation had even started off like an adventure in a new, exotic world.  With the climate shift, northern Africa was going to be actually livable – even farmable with some work – and he’d never had the opportunity to get in on something at the ground level like that.  So sure, he’d figured it was going to be hard, but he could put his agricultural degree to work in ways no one had ever dreamed and actually _make_ something of his life that would’ve done his grandmother proud. 

            Then Cambyses had come to his little transplant town.  And…  Yeah.  It was hard to remember the details of the cages now, and what had come after, and he was glad; he was okay with how he’d lived on autopilot, following orders and not really taking any of it in.  Then Robby had found him… and while he didn’t think everything was okay yet, he knew it _could_ be, eventually. 

            But now Marlé looked upset, and he hadn’t meant to turn the conversation dark.  “It was a long time ago,” he reassured her, smiling.  “I’m not going to be sad about where I came from, you know?”  Either West Virginia _or_ the Sahara. 

            Her smile was tentative, but genuinely happy, and not pitying at all.  For a girl with so many secrets, she was stunningly sincere.  And she won more points for not trying to empathize like she understood; she just smiled and held out her hand for his room key and asked him to turn on the oven. 

            He might be ready to add to the hype about this kid. 

            It wasn’t until the preheat had finished that another stranger slouched his way into the open doorway and eyed him and Skye for a moment before settling on the girl.  And staring.  She pointedly ignored him while she took too long to put on baking mitts she didn’t need and arrange the pasta just so.  Then she spent a while shutting the damn oven door and fiddling with the timer that couldn’t be _nearly_ as difficult to program as she made it out to be.  _Then_ she switched on the internal light and crouched in front of the glass to eye the food as though she expected it to explode at any moment. 

            The man in the doorway didn’t react.  He just stood, casual stance as tense as a coiled spring, waiting. 

            It was somehow less awkward than it should have been, though maybe only because he wasn’t the one with the raptor’s attention on him. 

            Finally, she sighed and stood up, turning to face the doorway, and glowered back at him.  “What?” 

            “Audi.”  He rolled the d like an L1 native – where somehow it was a d and an r and an l sound all at once. 

            She perked up.  “What?” 

            The man – Odin, or whatever name _he_ was using now – smirked.  “We found good papers for it.  Audi Burton.  Audi Harlé Burton, maybe.”  She slapped both hands over her mouth to smother giggles, and his grin widened, his slouch relaxing into something a little less predatory, before turning to eye the labels she had peeled off the food.  “That looks good.” 

            “You’re welcome,” Don groused under his breath.  Apparently everyone else failed at going to the damn grocery store.  Next time, he was making Felix go with him. 

            “Food does sound good,” Quatre decided as he stepped around Odin.  “It’s what, three am?”  He smiled at Don.  “Good thinking; I thought I was going to have to make do with soup and sandwiches until something opened.” 

            _Of course._   He rolled his eyes.  “I should make you get lost and eat tomato soup with dry toast.”  Because there was no way any of these assholes would have remembered to buy butter. 

            Quatre paused at that, then narrowed his eyes for a moment… and nodded.  “No.” 

            “You did that wrong,” Skye pointed out immediately. 

            The younger man let out an amused chuff before spinning around and moving to the couch.  “No I didn’t.” 

            “ _Bullshit,_ ” the girl – Audi – singsonged, hoisting herself up onto the counter. 

            “I deny everything and instead direct you to the shifty-eyed man standing ominously in the corner,” Quatre announced happily, dropping bonelessly to the couch. 

            …He…  Actually, somehow being okay with the little redhead had sidelined the fact that this guy was armed and watching them like he was trying to decide who to eat first.  The hairs on the back of Don’s neck rose, and Skye honest to god _jumped_. 

            But that… wasn’t right either.  No one had introduced him but he was obviously Quatre’s friend based on body language alone, even if he was… looming all creepy in the corner.  Frowning, Don met him stare for blank, impenetrable stare… as he took three fluid steps to move out of the corner and into the kitchen without breaking eye contact. 

            _You’ve got to be kidding me._  

            But then Quatre’s laughter was _just_ naughty enough that he suddenly wasn’t sure if the guy was actually that menacing while slouching in a freaking corner, or if his feelings were the empath feeling mischievous. 

            The jackass just laughed harder the more suspicious he got, damn it. 

            Audi rolled her eyes.  “Not that I don’t appreciate the genius of just taking the consonants out of my name,” she began plaintively.  “But what was wrong with Aurelia Deloe?” 

            “Nothing,” Odin answered immediately, dropping his weight back against the fridge. 

            She gave him a very unimpressed look.  “And?” 

            “Aurelia and Rowan Deloe were perfect for what you wanted, and you guys should definitely hold onto the passports you made,” Quatre explained, sinking deeper into the couch and closing his eyes.  “They’re perfect in a ‘don’t notice me’ average way, but that’s not going to work with what we’re doing now.”  He rubbed his hands over his face.  “You need something with stronger bones and a history full of holes.” 

            “Full of holes,” she repeated dubiously. 

            “Full of legitimate, sketchy holes,” he agreed. 

            “You’re in a really contrary sort of mood, Bossman,” Skye announced, standing up and walking over to the couch himself. 

            “He’s not wrong,” Odin offered, crossing his arms. 

            “So… we can’t use the Deloe names because I did a good job?” the girl demanded skeptically. 

            “Too thorough,” Odin agreed. 

            “There are a couple things that will contradict down the line,” Quatre told her as Skye settled next to him.  “Then it could draw too much suspicion to stand even though you’ve dotted all your i’s.”  He shook his head a little.  “She and Rowan are still good for avoiding suspicion, but not for standing under direct scrutiny.” 

            “…So to make it more realistic, we’re going to poke holes in the cover story.”  Her tone was unconvinced. 

            Quatre smirked.  “Giant, Odin-shaped holes.” 

            “…Yeah, okay, I can see that.” 

-

***

-

**October 12 th 198 – Saturday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia **

            “I haven’t been very fair to you.” 

            Mu startled, spinning to look over her shoulder and find Colonel Miller already shutting the door she had just come through.  She fought the urge to swallow hard, but couldn’t help the sharp burst of adrenaline that made her pulse begin to race. 

            She had respected him from the start because Mitchell obviously did; then later because she could see he was a responsible and talented commander.  She had come to like him as a person, for all that there were little things about him that frankly creeped her out – that screamed _‘danger’_ so loud she couldn’t ignore them.  He was a good person.  He cared about the right things, and he could be fun to hang out with on his own merit.  She had easily seen why David claimed him as his best friend. 

            Even after the two of them had their fight, she had respected this man, because, well…  Dave could be a real _dick_ sometimes, and she hadn’t needed to see Miller’s file to know he had a temper.  It’d looked like it was all blown out of proportion, but personally, she’d figured that the man had probably deserved the beating.  The obvious guilt and depression she’d watched Jake float through afterwards had just proved that despite the power they both wielded, both colonels were just men who fucked up sometimes. 

            But now that she knew he was Váli?  That changed _everything_. 

            He sighed as he leaned back against the only way out of the room.  “Don’t go all dramatic on me.” 

            “Are you shitting me?” she demanded.  “Because you have seriously got to be shitting me here.” 

            He snorted out a laugh, and something coiled tight in her belly started to unwind – even as the loss of tension made her start to panic in truth.  He _wanted_ her calm and unsuspecting, which meant that was where she _shouldn’t_ be.  Váli was someone she may have hoped to work under someday in an abstract way, but while idolizing the boogeyman was one thing, finding out he’d gone native and had been idly watching her trade information on him for the past five months made her feel like a butterfly pressed in glass. 

            At first, when they came back, she wasn’t sure that he knew.  Dave had said he’d been out of contact, after all, and she’d struggled to act like nothing was wrong.  And Vaughn said he’d gone and worked everything back out with Mitchell as soon as they’d gotten back – and that meant she was safe, didn’t it? 

            So he wasn’t going to hurt her, but...  She started to shake. 

            “Christ, Mu,” he groused, dropping his head back against the door, throat exposed and every line of him relaxed.  “Get a grip before you hyperventilate.  I don’t know what you’re expecting, but if it was bad do you honestly think I would have let you see me coming?”  He brought his head back up and gave her an exasperated look.  “Not even going into the fact that you apparently think I’d attack you in the first place, because that actually _does_ piss me off.  Whatever clusterfuck the past couple months have been, even if you _weren’t_ one of my people, Dave and Treize are still the big brothers I never deserved.” 

            She closed her eyes and slumped onto her bed, wanting to cave in on herself.  “How long have you known?” 

            He scoffed.  “Since I looked at your file when I was putting Lena’s first crew together eighteen months ago and decided you’d be happier where you were.” 

            “I wasn’t.” 

            “Hindsight is a bitch,” he muttered by way of agreement.  “Maybe I did you a disservice, but my goal was to build a solid unit to support the princess – and the loyalists I brought in were _always_ going to be phased out eventually, myself included.”  He paused, shifting his weight.  “Honestly?  I passed you over because I thought you’d make a good ace on my next project and I didn’t want to squander you on something temporary.  You’re too valuable for that.” 

            Mu opened her eyes again but stared at the wall instead of looking back at the man, feeling numb.  “What happened, then?” 

            She saw him shrug uncomfortably in her peripheral vision.  “Then everything was different, after the riot; maybe before that, I don’t know, but… I couldn’t do it anymore, so I started stalling.  Then Heavyarms showed up and we needed to move, so I just buried myself in the details of that and excused myself as being too busy…  So Dave thought he’d be helpful and give me resources I hadn’t approved – which turned you into a lever against me in our latest pissing contest.  Lena caught on to the friction, Dorothy didn’t take to you, and you got frustrated enough that something slipped in front of her.  Since then, Relena’s been keeping you tucked away and watched while she tries to decide if the security breech was worth knowing who her mole was, and I…  I was so busy with my morally ambiguous balancing act that I dropped the ball and just sidelined anything about you beyond providing safe harbor.” 

            He sighed.  “So with the best of intentions, everyone you ought to have been able to turn to has basically fucked you over.  The responsible thing would have been to immediately transfer you back out as soon as Dave slipped you in, but I got all passive aggressive instead and here we are.  I’d offer to keep you as a liaison because Relena really _will_ ally to Treize, but that’s just sentiment – you’d stay an outsider here, your talent goes to waste, and it’ll probably be a long time before Lena can think of you as anything other than a spy.  And that’s not even touching on your dynamic with the others.  You’d be miserable and no one would even gain anything from it.” 

            She refused to cry.  Things were fucked up enough without adding snot to it.  “Pretty fucking bleak, then.” 

            He came closer, slowly, clearly telegraphing his motions, and she was thankful for the consideration even as it made her feel weak; she wasn’t sure she could handle anything else right now.  “Only if you stay here.” 

            “I don’t want to go to the Strike Force.”  She’d _die_ there.  She liked David, but he he’d overestimate her.  He’d ask for more than she could give, and she wouldn’t be able to turn him down, because he’d believe in her right until the end.  She _wanted_ to be worth that regard, but just… she just _wasn’t_ , and she _shouldn’t_ have to feel ashamed of that! 

            “Good, because that’s a shitty idea too,” Jake agreed, now standing in front of her.  “You’re too smart for the front line; your strengths are in finesse and conviction, and even if you made it work for you, it would burn you down to nothing.” 

            Relief flooded through her and she gasped at the strength of it, breath hitching as her ears started to thunder.  She swallowed convulsively, willing the tears away.  She hadn’t realized just how resigned to the idea she had become despite how much she feared it, resented it.  It had been crowding her thoughts this past month, trying to smother her ever since Mitchell had made the offer. 

            She just wanted to go _home_.  She wanted to be done with her tour and catch the first flight back to Los Angeles and surprise her mom with lunch at work.  She wanted to talk to her dad about the ridiculous politics in the fantasy novels they’d both been reading most recently and argue about what the characters should have done instead.  She wanted to call up Uncle Tony and help him pick up his latest almost perfect and entirely unattainable crush, to get roped into the ridiculous little parties her cousins liked to throw while they cooed over their babies and prodded her about when she was going to find a husband.  She wanted to drive out to the coast and people watch while she ate fresh lychee and worked on her tan. 

            But she couldn’t.  She couldn’t do any of that ever again.  And if she didn’t find a good enough reason to have survived everyone she had ever loved, she didn’t think she could bear it.  There had to be _something_ she was meant for, that needed her so badly that she had lived through this hell, and she needed to find it before the abyss swallowed her whole. 

            “I… know a few things,” Jake muttered as he crouched in front of her, trying to look into her eyes, “about outliving tragedy.” 

            She ducked her head to one side, trying to get a grip on her breathing. 

            She just started to heave harder instead. 

            “Everyone says time helps, but… well, I don’t really believe that.  It makes it easier to think about, maybe, but that’s more because you get so worn down by it that you start to give in and go numb; it doesn’t make it better.” 

            She squeezed her eyes shut again, feeling her gut twist.  Everyone _did_ say that, and she _hated_ it.  It was what people said when they ran out of things they _could_ do and wanted to act like they were in still in control anyway. 

            The fact that maybe he _got_ that just made this all worse. 

            He reached out and pressed his hands down on where she had hers, gripping her knees.  “And maybe it’s different for you, but I know that the only thing that really helped me?  Was finding things I could do to stop it from happening again to somebody else.  Things I was good at, that other people couldn’t do, or wouldn’t.” 

            Mu’s breath hitched again, and her eyes _burned_. 

            “And I really fucked up with you, so I don’t want you to think this is charity or any other self recriminating bullshit, because I owe you for that… but I want you to tell me what you need, and I’m going to make it happen.  I don’t care what it is or who it’s with: you tell me, and I’m going to have it ready to roll before you walk out my door.  Anything at all.” 

            She pulled her hands away and sat back to wipe at her eyes, wondering if he had any idea how ridiculous that sounded.  “Don’t make promises like that,” she half sobbed at him. 

            He made a frustrated noise.  “Really?  No one questioned me when I pulled this damn _fortress_ out of a hat, but you think I can’t pull some strings and get you your dream career on Earth?  Disappear you so you can join Treize’s fleet of analysts in space?  Arrange an honorable discharge and set you up with a no kill animal shelter?” 

            She choked out a laugh at that, mind whirling. 

            “I know people – I can magic up a few investors if you want to do something big.  Come on, you were freaking out a minute ago because I’m omniscient and terrifying, you can’t really think I _can’t_.” 

            He… maybe had a point, but she couldn’t make sense of it right now.  This all was just…  “Okay.” 

            Jake nodded sharply and rose back to his feet.  “Think about it, okay?” 

            She nodded a few times, trying to get herself back under control.  She was mostly failing, but at this point she just wanted him out of her room.  “Okay.” 

            “Let me know.”  And with that, he was gone. 

-

***

-

**October 14 th 198 – Monday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “I _want_ there to be more exposure, believe me,” Delilah was arguing as they came up the stairs.  “But I think, to be the most _effective_ , the campaign needs to stay subtle.” 

            “Mm.”  Relena frowned, palming the lock for her antechamber, passing through then holding the door open for Delilah, who had her hands full with a tray from the kitchen.  “I think I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t know that I agree.  It is, after all, an awareness movement.”  She let the door swing closed, and headed for the opposite, silently counting out the forty seconds after the outer lock re-engaged.  “Everything to do with the Osborne Reunion Foundation has commentary on the importance of privacy, the value of anonymity.” 

            “No one believes everything they read, even if it’s repeated enough times that you grow sick of it,” Delilah argued, shifting the weight of the tray onto one hip.  Relena frowned and gestured for the older woman to pass it to her, but she just gave her a dubious look and shook her head.  “You have to put your money where your mouth is and practice what you preach.” 

            Relena rolled her eyes and plucked the water pitcher from the tray.  “It’s barely getting any recognition.” 

            “Which _would_ be why I’m here to sort things out with you.”  She handed her a napkin, which, really, was good; she hadn’t thought about how damp the glass would be from the ice.  “The trick is to make what you want to show off _popular_ , without the garish in between stage where you’re just screeching for attention.”  Shifting the tray on her hip, she added, “I have a few tactics in mind, but not the means.”  She gestured at the door questioningly.  “That’s where you come in, hopefully.” 

            Relena shrugged a little and began wiping at the condensation built up on the pitcher, still counting.  Explaining took longer than dealing with the awkwardness, and telling someone that you had odd time-based emergency responses was counter to the _point_.  “Oh?” 

            Delilah frowned, casting a glance around the dark-paneled wood of the antechamber that was part suspicion, part confusion.  “Are we being scanned?  Because I feel like this might be a good time to mention I carry a taser.” 

            “Don’t be ridiculous.”  And she’d known that – Hayden had texted her about it before she and Mai had come down to meet her guest on her first visit.  “It’s not as though you can get it out very quickly.” 

            “Which _would_ be the reason I was trying to ask if I should drop lunch and start the getting,” she returned in a wry tone, rolling her eyes.  “You’ve no intention to explain, do you?” 

            Relena smiled brightly before turning and pressing her palm to the pad.  “A woman must always maintain an air of mystery,” she quipped, holding in a laugh. 

            She _did_ laugh, then.  “Really?  You’re going to try pulling that card on _me_?” 

            Relena gave into the urge to snicker, turning the handle and twisting to meet Delilah’s eyes as she hip checked the door the rest of the way open and walked in backwards.  “It was worth a try,” she insisted.  “To see if I could make you laugh, if nothing else.” 

            “Very well, point made.”  She resettled the weight of her tray once more before following.  “ _Ooh_ , lovely.” 

            Lena frowned as she stepped sideways so the door could fall shut, turning back around… and _staring_. 

            They covered practically _everything_.  Her office was a _jungle_.  A giant, bright _yellow_ jungle of- 

            “Daffodils,” her guest was exclaiming happily.  “A little excessive, but certainly cheery.” 

            She wanted to groan in exasperation.  Instead, what came out was a slightly mad giggle.  _Excessive?_   She had no idea what to even _do_ with all this!  They were…  Where was she supposed to put _lunch_?  The only flat surface left was the floor, and not even it had escaped.  Those were sunflowers, too, over by the windows overlooking the grounds, and red sunflowers collected in a vase on an end table, and… 

            She wanted to giggle helplessly and strangle him all at once.  She’d been _in this room_ not fifteen minutes ago – how had he even _done_ this? 

            “Oh, wow!” Mai exclaimed, coming in from the bathroom.  “Would you look at that?” 

            “I do not believe you are even _slightly_ innocent in this,” Relena immediately argued, focusing on the major.  “Don’t even try it.” 

            “I’ve no idea what you’re implying, Princess!” the Australian woman insisted happily.  Strolling over as if the atrium was turned into a nursery every other Thursday, she started to shift pots of flowers off the coffee table and onto the floor.  “I have absolutely no idea how these all got up here.” 

            “Liar,” Relena retorted, but was unable to stop her mouth from twitching traitorously into a smile.  “You’ve been missing all morning; he put you up to this!  I should have guessed.” 

            “I had to take Lorenzo to the vet,” she adlibbed. 

            “Olivia has a vet come to her kennel.” 

            “It didn’t work with my schedule this month.”  She took the pitcher from her and set it down before continuing to rearrange so that only the vase of red sunflowers stayed – most of the flowers, she realized, were still potted. 

            “You’re _lying,_ ” she persisted, and, having completely lost at stopping herself from grinning like a fool, struggled to at least not giggle like a schoolgirl. 

            “And your face is lit up like sunshine,” her friend pointed out, beaming. 

            She really couldn’t help it then, because, really… what else could she do?  This…  This was possibly the most bizarrely extreme example of your beau giving you flowers that she could have ever _imagined_ , even as a little girl.  She stood there and giggled, staring around at just…  absurdly bright and cheerful yellow. 

            Boys had given her flowers before, but always the very carefully thought out bouquets, with an absurd amount of ceremony and etiquette surrounding it… and he wasn’t even _here_. 

            “Where _is_ he?” she demanded after a long few moments of staring around. 

            “You don’t actually want to know,” Mai informed her brightly.  “You really don’t.”  She actually _looked_ at the food tray then, and frowned.  “Isn’t Dorothy supposed to be here?” 

            “She’s not answering her phone.”  Relena frowned.  That… was actually rather odd, come to think of it. 

            Mai’s incredulous look let her know that she agreed.  “Uh… huh.” 

            “She’s a grown woman,” the princess dismissed.  Jake probably had _her_ busy helping him with whatever stunt came after this.  She’d text Olivia after this meeting if she still hadn’t heard back.  She hadn’t heard from her today either, and that really could be all the explanation needed. 

            Turning to smile and shrug at her guest, she gestured towards the couches, moving to sit opposite.  “Extravagant gestures aside,” she announced dryly, “Shall we?” 

-

***

-

**Szczecin, Poland**

            “What else, then?” 

            Quatre gestured vaguely at Odin, focused on what he had up on the board – looking for gaps, comparing them with the other profiles… debating if it would be advantageous to add more ties.  _Probably not._   It actually might be a good idea to remove a few, considering the source.  “Let it stew a while,” he decided.  It was good work – he was entirely confident it would be perfect once he was done – but it wouldn’t hurt to take a few days to regain an outside perspective.  It would be annoying to have to shore something up later because he was trying to do five things at once. 

            He was pretty sure he _could_ do close to twenty things at once without blurring the streams of thought together – after _Libra_ it was easy – but the results lacked… flavor.  The entire point of working something through by hand was to give it real depth and quirk. 

            His lips twitched into something that fell short of a smile.  After _Libra_ , finding that state of mental equilibrium Zero gave him became frustratingly _not helpful_.  He and Heero had lacked the resources to _apply_ any strategies that may have helped their helter-skelter flight through Europe. 

            On the other hand, he knew that, if he had been faced with the Cambyses quarantine before coming to terms with Zero?  He would have allowed himself to die.  After exhausting all avenues of escape from the Iron Ghetto, falling into Zero’s patterns had allowed him to run through the statistics of consequence – to find the options least likely to see him dead or insane.  When they had worked to see him free of the cages faster, he’d refused to let go of those patterns; instead, they had allowed him to twist his mind into the strange knot that was Robby.  Finding the men who still wanted to be _men_ instead of monsters had been more of the same; constantly calculating actions and microexpressions, analyzing everyone he met and scoring them on a sliding scale of humanity.  Thinking that way had been his salvation, granting him the ability to decide who he would or wouldn’t approach by their percentage on his internal rubric.  Unless they consistently scored high enough, he kept his distance. 

            It wasn’t until he had recruited over forty men – more than the Maguanacs – that he began to believe it wouldn’t twist around to bite him, warping his mind into something twisted and depraved.  Honestly, it wasn’t until maybe a month ago that he had begun to trust that he wouldn’t… _regress_. 

            He still worried that his acceptance of himself now was only a reflection of those who had placed their faith in him – of Odin’s tranquil mind and the others’ easy acceptance – but no man lived in a vacuum.  In any case, he knew the weaknesses of his mind, and the people he surrounded himself with were the counter to those tendencies.  So long as he had them, the classification of his psyche was purely academic. 

            Without them…  _Well, that’s the sort of madness they write epics about._   Everyone had a breaking point; if everyone he cared about died, he should _hope_ he would break down.  If you went through something that traumatic and didn’t, you had an entirely different set of problems.  

            _Besides,_ he thought with amusement as Odin came up beside him to consider the diagrams himself.  _If I structure myself around **his** survival, I doubt there will be any problems._   It was more complicated than that, of course – but not _wrong_ either. 

            “How many other projects are you using this timeline for?” 

            _Straight to the heart of it, as always._   “Six at minimum, ten at most.  This ought to be the primary backbone of the story, but it would be too coincidental for _everything_ to link back here.”  Real life just didn’t work out that neatly. 

            Odin tipped his head to one side, considering the whiteboard.  “That won’t all fit up there.” 

            Technically, he didn’t need the whiteboard: he just liked to be able to check his work.  “I’ll switch to paper soon.”  

            For all that he had come to rely on the trance-like meditative state of mind he’d gained from Zero, he would never fully trust it. 

            _This part **is** done,_ he decided, leaning back against the table.  It was still only a skeleton, but that was all it _should_ be.  Twisting around, he grabbed a blank spiral notebook and handed it to his friend.  “I need as many details as you can give me,” he decided.  “It doesn’t matter how random it seems; I need to be sure I don’t write in a contradiction.”  He would probably keep one or two, but he didn’t want enough to cause actual doubt. 

            Odin shrugged and sat, flipping the thing open to a blank page.  “I might need prompts,” he warned as he began writing. 

            “You think in odd circles,” Quatre agreed, smirking.  He turned around to sort through the notebooks he had already written in, pawing through them until he found what he wanted.  _Cat Wilson.  American, Pacific Northwest, ACET track, doing an exchange year in Rome during the Fall for an MBA.  Only child, mother deceased during early childhood, father emotionally withdrawn and reportedly in Seattle during the Fall, presumed deceased._  

            Most of it was close enough to his own history, emotionally, that it wouldn’t be too hard to maintain.  He would have to flatten his voice a little and shift his speech patterns, but it would become natural quickly enough – and anything too off target could be dismissed between the oddities of children raised into polyglots and the three years since _Libra_.  Cat wouldn’t have been home for almost four years due to the exchange program, so that would help too.  He’d decided to make him a little younger too; seventeen, instead of his true eighteen.  If he acted exasperated when people questioned the odd name and said his mom had been from Portland, everyone would just think ‘American’ and drop it. 

            After all, no one trying to avoid attention would try to insist his legitimate name was _Cat_ , of all things. 

            Without a home to return to, his host family had insisted he simply stay, and enough of his father’s assets had survived that he was able to finish his schooling and have enough of a nest egg to start something when he was done, so long as he was careful. 

            The host family in Rome would be Cory’s origin, since the boy was originally from Anzio and had never lost his accent.  It would be difficult to maintain a façade of family to return to, too easy to disprove, but at the same time…  It was ridiculous, but he was reluctant to kill off his charge’s imaginary relatives. 

            _Suspicion._   He snapped his attention over to Odin in a moment, ignoring the emotion vibrating in his chest like a frantic bird; it would fade soon.  “What?”  In retrospect, it wasn’t very strong – he likely wouldn’t have noticed it in someone else – but in the smooth, deep lake that he normally read from the man, it stood out like a beacon. 

            Odin didn’t look up, though he had stopped writing to tap his pen against his lips – another of those careless gestures he had picked up since Jerusalem that made him feel more organic, less something programmed.  “I’m missing something.” 

            Quatre resisted the urge to guffaw.   _That_ was certainly an understatement.  “Can you be a little more specific?” 

            He tipped his head, considering, and the suspicion sunk deeper, no longer agitating his senses, but… there was a sense of something large moving beneath the surface.  He wouldn’t be able to feel it if he hadn’t already known it was there. 

            “No,” the other man decided after a long moment.   

            “Right.”  _He did request prompts._   “How do you know?” 

            “It’s too fragmented.  The earlier I go, the more it breaks down, until the pieces have almost no perspective at all.” 

            Quatre considered not saying anything for a long moment, but decided that would be in bad faith.  “That’s fairly common.” 

            “I’m explaining badly.”  Frustration rippled through him, then settled again into concentration as Odin closed his eyes.  “I knew my father was sad.  I _always_ knew my father was sad, and that it was okay because he was supposed to be.” 

            Well… that was an unusual jump for a child to have made, but not bizarre.  Deciding something was ‘normal’ was the most common coping mechanism in existence. 

            “But I remember him being happy,” he continued.  “I remember him laughing when I…  I can’t _remember_ the details – only the _emotions_.  The facts start contradicting.  He’s watching me try something new and I can see him ahead of me, but he also has a hand on my back.  He said he wasn’t my father, but I shouldn’t use names, so I could call him Dad anyway.  I remember being comfortable, _safe_ , when I knew he was out getting food – but I also know that I _hated_ to be alone when I was small.” 

            His chin dipped closer to his chest.  “None of it’s reliable.  Either it’s all corrupt and half imagination, or…”  He looked up and glared at the whiteboard.  “I don’t know.  Either I can’t trust any of it, or something… tore.  Something ripped.  And I don’t know what.” 

            _Well..._   Context was an issue.  “Something changed,” Quatre offered.  “If the before and after was severe, it might have been traumatic.  The younger a person is, the easier it is for them to feel like something is the end, because they haven’t seen enough to weather change yet.  It’s just… chaos, and since it hasn’t happened before, the mind doesn’t already have a stable way to adapt.”  He shrugged.  “But it also means that kids can often handle themselves in terrible circumstances better than adults, since they don’t have a solid sense of scale.” 

            The other man’s emotions felt… _muddled_ , now.  It was all beneath that glass smooth lake surface, though, so he wasn’t too worried about it.  _Another tactic, then._   “Do you feel like anything broke up like that after you self-destructed, or the Fall?” 

            Odin appeared to think about it for a long moment.  Then, “No.  Though things after _Libra_ were strange in a different way.  A lot of the time, nothing felt real.  Just… like a really long, dark dream.”  His head tipped again.  “That was probably a good thing.” 

            “I’m going to count it as one,” Quatre agreed.  Heero’d come close enough to suicide all too many times even with that buffer. 

            “The retraining, though,” Odin argued.  “It happened then.” 

            He frowned.  _Retraining?_   “When was that?” 

            “Mm, 194.  Summer, I think?  Maybe spring.”  He shifted, closing his eyes again, body relaxing.  “The part of L1 I lived in was in a warm cycle when it started.” 

            His emotions were serene, but Odin’s life _revolved_ around numbers.  “You don’t remember the dates?” 

            He shrugged.  “It’s jumbled.  I stopped caring, and that was… encouraged.” 

            _Is he actually calm, or is he suppressing this somehow?_   “Encouraged how?” He was pretty sure he understood what the other man was implying, but- 

            “I don’t like to think about it.”  Odin turned and met his eyes, still deadly calm.  “So I don’t.” 

            _Hell._   That… sounded a great deal like how he had twisted himself into Robby, and…  _Well, Heero **is** the only successful long-term user of the Zero System._   At least, he had only ever done what he had wanted before stepping into the cockpit.  If Zero had broken him, it had never shown in the results. 

            _Perhaps because the man had already been broken and healed before touching it?_

            He sucked in a deep breath, focusing on the steady anchor of his friend.  He forced himself to let this go the same as Odin evidently already had, relishing the stillness in him, and just… _accepted_.  If he didn’t want to think about it, Quatre wasn’t going to argue.  Instead, he struggled to get back on topic.  “That backs up the trauma theory,” he decided.  _Shock might be a better term._  

            He focused back on the board.  Really, he _had_ everything he needed…  His hesitation was more to do with wanting to have the linked profiles ready before implementing any of them.  “Take a few days to jot down those details if you can, and I’ll look them over before finalizing it.” 

            Odin nodded.  “Anything else?” 

            Well, he hadn’t planned to ask, but since Odin had, it felt appropriate.  “Your girl.”  Marlé – Audi, he needed to get into the habit of thinking of her as Audi now – had a talent for this the same as he did and would only benefit from the practice.  Inexperienced as she was, she had been a fantastic help when crafting the new identities for his men, even without going into the digital tricks Odin had taught her. 

            She’d tried to show him those too, but the logic of it was… frustrating.  He could probably do it if he had to, now, but she was _good_ , and enjoyed it the same way he did time with his violin.  Sitting next to her as she worked it was a pleasure by itself. 

            _Amusement.  Pride._   “You couldn’t stop her if you tried.” 

            Quatre laughed.  “I don’t care to test that.” 

            A spark of… _attention_?  Not everything was always easy to define but…  Getting an idea?  _Inspiration?_   “A few days, then?” 

            If he wanted to present everything at once, instead of piecemeal?  “Likely closer to a week,” he corrected.  Then there was still the physical aspect of it.  He’d need to slip physical forgeries into at least a few agencies…  Skye might be best for that, and Sio; maybe Ardith, if he was back by then.  Between the four of them, they should be able to get a decent amount of scatter. 

            Less that spark of idea now – more _conviction, satisfaction_.  “I’m calling Lucrezia.” 

            _Ah._   He grinned back at him as Odin smiled brightly and strode purposefully out of the room.  He’d wondered before, but _that_ …  That was a good feeling too. 

-

***

-

**October 19 th 198 – Saturday – Luxembourg City, Luxembourg**

            _Mm, phone._   Not really awake, she reached for it, patting the bed in the direction of the sound without opening her eyes.  She felt good, deliciously sated and warm…  “Hello?” 

            There was a pause, then, _“I woke you up, didn’t I?”_  

            Dorothy smiled and yawned, opening her eyes to consider the bedroom ceiling.  “What time is it?” 

            Relena let out an amused noise.  _“Eleven.  Are you home?”_  

            _It’s a good thing I arranged for a late check-out, then._   “Lux, actually.”  She sat up and grimaced at her hair; she had planned to wait on showering until she got to Belgium, but the dark color was suddenly detestable.  “What’s going on?” 

            _“Nothing, I just hadn’t heard from you in almost a week,”_ Relena dismissed.  _“Is everything okay?”_  

            “Everything is absolutely _excellent_ ,” she purred happily, shaking her hair back so she didn’t have to look at it.  “I’ll be back in time for supper tomorrow.”  She paused, considering.  “Was there something you needed before then?” 

            _“Oh, no.  There might be something you could do if you’re already so far west as that, but I already handed it off to Olivia, so you would need to talk to her.”_   A pause, then, _“What are you doing, anyway?”_  

            Dorothy smirked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and heading for the en suite bathroom.  “Maybe I’ll tell you when you’re older.” 

            The princess scoffed in amusement at that, but didn’t press.  _“Be that way.  You sound happy, though.”_  

            “I am,” Dorothy agreed.  “I had a good night.”  She made a face at her reflection; that was a great _deal_ too much make-up.  “I need to brush my teeth,” she decided, reaching for her toiletry bag.  “I’m supposed to meet Olivia in Charleroi at four.”  She had planned to be late, but as she was awake already, she might as well do the unexpected and beat the other woman there – it wouldn’t do to become too predictable. 

            _“Alright, I’ll talk to you later.  I’m assuming you’re in on Olivia’s conspiracy involving why my schedule is suspiciously clear for three days around Halloween?”_  

            “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied cheerfully.  “Didn’t you already have plans with Jake anyway?” 

            Her friend let out a long-suffering sigh.  _“You’re not fooling anyone.  And leave the poor man **alone** , he’s trying.”_ 

            “Not hard enough, if you’re still talking like that,” Dorothy mused. 

            She could practically _hear_ Relena rolling her eyes, and she smirked, feeling accomplished.  _“Good- **bye** , Dorothy.”_ 

            “Good day to you,” she chirped back before disconnecting and glowering at her reflection again, debating. 

            _No._   Shower it was. 

-

***

-

**Ieper, Belgium – Ancient Wars Memorial**

            “Holy shit,” Hilde gasped out.  “That’s…”  Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard.  “Holy _shit_!” 

            _That just about says it all, doesn’t it?_   On the one hand, it was gratifying to know that the breadcrumb trail he had been dragging Hilde around on hadn’t been imagined – he really had started to wonder if he was chasing impulse instead of facts, this time.  On the other… 

            He had no idea what to do. 

            He bit the inside of his lip, trying to focus… but the deep well of knowledge about seemingly everything useful or dangerous from an earlier lifetime had… nothing. 

            _Nothing._   That…  That was new. 

            _…Trowa **died in an explosion**._   The egg timer was counting down from eighteen something. 

            He ruthlessly shoved down the urge to run. 

            “Fuck, this is…”  Hilde crouched down in front of the storage cupboard they had opened, reaching out to touch the thing before remembering herself and drawing her hands back to her knees.  “Maybe…” 

            Adam narrowed his eyes and settled onto his toes just behind her.  _If I get a closer look, maybe something will click?_   Maybe he just hadn’t stumbled on the right trigger yet.  Trowa _had_ to have worked with explosives before – he’d been a mercenary turned terrorist. 

            It looked… weird.  No clearly professional clay or plastic – instead, it was all…  Well, there were at least two containers for hair products involved. 

            What were the chances they could maybe… spin out more time on the clock?  Was that a thing that might actually work?  _Probably not._   At any rate, he didn’t want to find out if he was wrong.  _Who puts an **egg timer** on a bomb?_   They’d only found the damn thing because he had heard it ticking in the supply closet when they walked by. 

            He’d only wanted to come to the memorial at all because of a rumor about something big going down that they’d picked up after sorting out the whole thing with drug traffickers in Italy.  At a glance, they’d seemed pretty deeply in bed with the guys with the stockpile in France where Hilde had shown up to lend a hand.  After they had put together that the amount of money dropped on that particular rebel cell was only a drop in the bucket – apparently there was _fantastic_ money to be had in heroin – they had been grasping at straws to find anything meaningful to salvage out of the trip.  But this… 

            _Eighteen minutes._   It had taken longer than that to get here, winding through security.  If they flat out sprinted and hoped no one felt trigger happy?  _Ten, maybe?_   They had passed at least one window he might be able to shortcut through – maybe he could shave it down to something closer to five. 

            _Blast radius?_   He had no idea.  Looking at it, he wasn’t even sure if whoever had put it together did.  Maybe Duo could, but for all that Hilde claimed Duo had taught her, he was pretty sure the ex-pilot had only had enough time to cover the basics. 

            _Seventeen._  

            If he was wrong, and the windows were space-grade plastic instead of easily broken glass?  This was an old museum – there were enough relics and valuables that it was a possibility.  The amount of variables involved… 

            It was business hours, on a Saturday at a popular international monument.  The number of people he had seen on his way in _alone_ would mark this explosion as a massacre. 

            It was one thing, to see something regrettable and not be moved by it.  _This_ was another entirely. 

            “Hey!”  Hilde yelped as he hauled her to her feet by the back of her jacket and dragged her after him back the way they had come.  “Hey, what the _fuck_!”  She tried to jerk away, but they didn’t have _time_ for this crap, so he pulled her up off her feet and shifted so he could toss her a couple meters ahead of him.  To her credit, she recovered quickly and was up almost instantly with a snarl, but it was long enough for him to take two more steps and shove up the safety cover and slam down the lever of the fire alarm. 

            The shrill scream of the klaxon made him wish he’d called in to the emergency line, but that was the whole crux of the problem – there wasn’t any _time_. 

            “Seriously?” Hilde demanded. 

            He pushed down the urge to backhand her, because _really_?  Was this a last word thing?  She was _wasting time._  

            _Whatever._   So long as she kept up, he didn’t give a damn. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “Marlé?” 

            The girl on the other end of the line said something else, but…  _What?_  

            “Hello?” he tried again.  _Maybe the connection’s bad?_   “Can you hear me?” 

            She laughed and talked more… but it made just about as much sense as before. 

            The line _sounded_ clear – but the words just didn’t _work_.  “Speak English,” Amos complained.  Sometimes, especially when she’d been talking a lot to Cory, she mixed her languages the same as Kay did. 

            He had to jerk the phone away from his ear as she _howled_ with laughter, and he could hear at least one other voice, deep enough that it had to be a guy, laughing just as hard.  Someone else, definitely another guy, was sputtering something, but he couldn’t make it out any better than he could Marlé. 

            He blew out a breath and waited it out, trying not to be too annoyed at being the butt of a joke he didn’t understand.  He almost wanted to hang up, but he didn’t have his backpack or books in here, and he wasn’t ready to leave the loft and hear any more of Kay’s angry monologue that was in at _least_ three languages he didn’t know.  ‘Liss and Rina were probably on their way back from the Den by now after helping Will home; the two of them would be able to calm the guy down enough that he stopped looking so _rabid_ , right? 

            Kay wasn’t dangerous or anything… but it _hurt_ to see him so out of control.  They’d been in the middle of a house call when the news about the bombing had come on the TV in the next room, and Kasey had barely said enough to let the customer know they’d be back the same time tomorrow before practically dragging him out of there by the back of his shirt.  He’d let go once they were outside, but he hadn’t said a word as he made them _run_ back to the shop.  Then as soon as the front door was locked behind them, he’d disappeared into the garage and started yelling and throwing things. 

            So Amos had gone upstairs and sat listening for a while before deciding he needed to _do something_.  ‘Liss had left a note on the front desk saying when she’d be back, so it was just until then, but…  He was trying really hard _not_ to freak out. 

            “Marlé?” he tried again once the laughter was calming down. 

            _“Arlé,”_ she corrected quickly.  _“No M, please.”_  

            “Um, okay,” he agreed.  He supposed it wasn’t that much of a difference.  “What’s going on?” 

            _“Not a whole lot,”_ she admitted readily.  _“I’m just hanging out with Cat’s friends while I wait for some stuff to dry.  You?”_  

            “I’m…”  He winced as he heard something crash _loud_ and tried to think of a good phrase – something Marlé would say.  “I’m listening to Kay lose his shit.” 

            _“Ooh, I’m sorry,”_ she decided, making a wincing sort of sound.  _“That sucks.  What happened?”_  

            “I guess you haven’t heard the news yet…” 

            _“No, I’ve been pretty busy,”_ she agreed.  _“Was working with Cat pretty deep for most of today, but I went to try to bum food off Dana maybe an hour ago and found Don and Skye playing backgammon while Charlie and some of the other guys watched something.  I’d just gotten in the swing of getting Don to teach me his accent when you called; I’m pretty awful at it so far, but I didn’t think it was so bad it didn’t sound **English**.”_   There were some shifting noise sounds, and he heard a door click shut.  _“There, I’m on my on now.  What happened?”_  

            He swallowed and plopped himself down in one of the chairs they’d set up with a table up here for studying.  “Someone set off another bomb, in Belgium this time.  Kay just…”  He licked his lips.  “He was really freaked out when the Paris one happened, you know?  Ieper is only a few hours away.” 

            _“I guess,”_ she agreed dubiously.  _“That’s still kinda random though, isn’t it?”_  

            “Well, ‘Liss and Nolan’s dad almost died in the Berlin one,” he reminded her. 

            _“Oh, I’d forgotten about that…  Still, that’s…  I mean, what can he really do about it?”_

            He made a face, burying his face on his arms as he leaned on the table.  “I think that’s the problem.  He _can’t_.  That freaks him out.” 

            _“Mmm… maybe, I guess.”_

            Amos sighed.  He didn’t really get it either, but he was hoping she might, with how close she was to Odin.  “Can you maybe get your brother to call him?” he asked hopefully.  It seemed wrong to just… sit and waiting for him to wear himself out. 

            _“Well, he’s not here right now, so no…  But I could probably get Cat to?  He’s probably better for that kind of thing anyway.  Odin tends to just stare at people when they flip their shit until they feel awkward enough to shut up.”_

            “No…  Nevermind.”  It was one thing to ask Odin, because Marlé was his friend, but he’d never met Cat.  He knew Kay had been super happy to talk to him the other day, but that was literally all Amos knew about the guy.  “’Liss should be back soon.”  If it wouldn’t totally freak Kay out later, he’d just head home and avoid all this altogether; it wasn’t like he was actually in any danger in their neighborhood, after all.  _But…_   Well, before he had officially left the church, Father Espen had invited him into his office and walked him through a lecture on PTSD and how different people coped, and asked him to please be patient if he saw Chaos have a panic attack.  

            He wasn’t sure if this was what the Father had meant, exactly, but… it was kinda panicky? 

            ‘Liss would know what to do.  He just had to wait. 

            _“I don’t get it, but okay.  Um…  It’s Saturday, right?”_

            “Yeah.” 

            _“So, you just been doing practical stuff today?  I know you were talking about wanting to do the math part of the test soon.”_

            “That… not now soon,” Amos disagreed, relaxing a little more into his slouch.  “I don’t know enough trig yet.  Next month soon.  Maybe.” 

-

***

-

**Starguard, Poland**

            “No…  No, that’s good.  Have you talked to him yet?” 

            _“I wanted to check in first.”_   To be fair, the other woman sounded absolutely exhausted.  _“See if you had anything to add, or wanted me somewhere else.”_  

            “Get some sleep first,” Lucrezia decided.  “Don’t push it if there’s no good reason to push; stock your reserves.  You’ve been bleeding the cupboards dry the past few weeks.” 

            _“I’ve been a day late and a buck short, is what.”_  

            Lucrezia smiled.  Hilde had probably meant that to come out as more of a growl than a whine, but…  Well, she _was_ tired.  “You really haven’t,” she dismissed.  On the contrary, from the snippets the woman managed to forward along the way, she wasn’t so sure that Hilde hadn’t been leading Adam by the nose just as much as he was her.  “I’d like more of the story once you have a chance to sit down, but I’d rather you catch your breath and touch base with Xu first.”  She was certain that Chang wasn’t working on anything time sensitive at the moment, but most habits you only learned by doing.  Humming to herself, she checked the time.  “Are you almost there?” 

            _“Eh, maybe another twenty or thirty minutes?”_   A pause, then, _“Shit, it’s only four?  Is George even there yet?”_  

            “That was my thought.”  _When was the last time you slept more than an hour or two at a time?_   She shook her head.  “I’ll text you.  Take care of yourself, and check in with Xu in the morning.” 

            _“Alright, later.”_  

            “Later,” she agreed, ending the call and opening her text log, smiling at the confirmation already there.  _‘Check in with me after she’s made it, please,’_ she sent.  As exhausted as she was, her she didn’t want Schbeiker to sleep without someone to watch her back.  _‘All set,’_ she told Hilde.  _‘Stay safe.’_  

            _‘Thanks, you too.’_  

            Smiling again, she tucked away her phone and dropped back onto the bed, stretching out her arms.  This was a cute little farmhouse, with its brickwork fireplace and steepled roof and rafter catwalk.  Modern, yet picturesque in an oddly eclectic way that she appreciated in spite of the rather severe juxtaposition of the outside versus indoors.  Set up as a rental, it had all the amenities but still felt like a cabin in the middle of nowhere. 

            She brought her legs up and pointed her toes at the ceiling and away, feeling the stretch… and bounced back to her feet.  On a whim, she closed her eyes moved through a few forms, enjoying the smooth flow of movement – so practiced that the balance was second nature.  She hadn’t done any formal ballet since she was a little girl, but the conditioning she couldn’t even remember learning had never lost its practicality, and there was something soothing to the motions. 

            Opening her eyes, she left the room and made her way across the catwalk, looking down into the kitchen at the reason why she was here.  “Did they turn out?” 

            “I was waiting for you.”  Odin didn’t look up from where he stood measuring out more spoonfuls of dough.  “Everything good on your end?” 

            Lucrezia nodded as she headed for the stairs.  She appreciated that he hadn’t tried to pry when Hilde called, but this wasn’t something she needed to keep separated.  “Yes.  There was a bombing earlier but they got out clean, and lowered the casualties while they were at it.”  She shook her head, realizing he might not have known _who_ she was talking to.  “Hilde and Adam, I mean.  But as soon as they got past the security perimeter, he vanished into thin air on her, and she needed an exit.”  The way he’d done it was kind of shitty, but not really out of character, so she wasn’t going to complain – Hilde had that in hand, she was sure. 

            He looked over his shoulder as she came into the room properly, frowning.  “But he liked working with her.” 

            _Well, he doesn’t **always** miss the subtext,_ she thought ruefully, shrugging.  She’d gotten that impression herself; though if the shiny phone Hilde said Adam was now carrying was any indication, Odin would know better. 

            Lucrezia had made it clear to Odin when this started that she didn’t want any secrets between them, but they didn’t talk about everything either.  She trusted him, but he hadn’t set down roots yet, and until he did, her work wasn’t any of his business.  He’d understood her need for transparency, and agreed though made it clear he was willing to help any time she requested… but he was still trying to work his own angle.  He was too used to being an independent player in his own right to just slot himself into someone else’s command; he thought he had more to bring to the table than that, apparently. 

            Given his history, it was probably going to be glorious.  She was curious enough to be willing to wait for him to finish fleshing out whatever he was up to. 

            He shook his head and focused back on the tray.  “Which profile did the bomb match?” 

            She made a face and moved around the opposite side of the counter.  “The first.”  Technically no tests had been done yet, but the mess that her protégé had described really couldn’t be anyone else.  The bombs in the administrative buildings in Berlin and the barracks in Paris had been put together with a daunting understanding of chemistry – entirely homemade and unique, using common products.  There had been others, one both before and another after Paris that the press had insisted were from the same group, but both had been demolition plastics.  She knew of at least one more from the second profile that hadn’t been released to the press once it was safely disarmed – the Assistant Secretary of the Austrian Department of Commerce had evidently argued that the panic such a near miss might have caused might be as bad as if his office had actually exploded. 

            The first profile was far more worrisome in general, but combined with the choice of the _Memorial_ of all places…  She wasn’t sure what that could mean.  She needed more information. 

            Odin grimaced as he spooned the last ball of dough that would fit onto the sheet in agreement.  “Messy.”  Absently, he brought his hand up to suck chocolate off his fingers as he picked up the tray with his other hand, and seemed to startle at the flavor before smiling in obvious pleasure. 

            Lucrezia smiled too.  “Well, that’s promising.”  He’d only had half the ingredients out when her phone had gone off, and he’d said he’d never baked before. 

            He shrugged, opening the oven with the clean pinkie and ring ringer of his left hand.  “It’s chocolate.” 

            “You _did_ find the good stuff,” she agreed, still a little startled that he’d splurged.  While Odin was hardly so utilitarian as he had been when they first met, it still felt odd when he went out of his way for luxuries.  He glanced over at her, hearing the _something_ in her tone, and she shook her head a little.  “It’s a little much for your first attempt.” 

            His mouth quirked.  “Well, it was either this or let Audi _drink_ it the first time my back was turned,” he pointed out wryly as he shut the oven door and set the timer. 

            Lucrezia burst out laughing.  She was getting used to the name change, but the easy way he said it with an unusual accent made her think Audi might be closer to the child’s true name than Marlé.  “You make her sound like a recovering alcoholic,” she protested. 

            He gave her a disbelieving look as he brought his chocolate covered fingers back to his mouth, eyes lit with amusement.  “And?” 

            She laughed harder, leaning over the counter to swipe a finger against the edge of the mixing bowl and try herself.  She hadn’t had real chocolate since…  Since the last time he had given it to her, actually. 

            _Marlé might not be the only addict,_ she decided happily, tasting… and groaning a little.  _Oh, not fair._   Not that she was actually complaining, but damn it, was there _anything_ he wasn’t automatically good at?  Boosting herself up a bit on the edge of the counter, she leaned further this time to grab some of the dough instead of just the traces on the lip.  Half expecting to get her hand smacked, she made a happy noise at her success and popped it in her mouth before she could be scolded, humming happily… maybe a little blissfully.  **_So_** _not fair._   “I might have to keep you.”  She bit into something and blinked her eyes open in surprise.  “Is that butterscotch?” 

            He was staring at her, some mix of stunned and…  And then he was moving, launching himself up onto the counter in front of her and pulling her up into his lap, mouth hungry.  _Oh._   She started laughing again as she kissed him back, really _thinking_ about what she’d just been doing…  _Oh, that was kinda bad._  

            Not that she was complaining.  At all.  Slippery slope or no, she loved the intensity of this man.  There was a passion to him she could hardly _conceptualize_ but was starting to crave when he was gone. 

            She started laughing harder as she remembered Marlé’s ranting last week.  She’d assumed he was planning to take any leftover cookies back to the girl, but- “Oh _no_ ,” she breathed.  “You took the chocolate and put butterscotch in it!  Audi is going to _kill_ you.” 

            “Stop talking about my sister,” he ordered breathlessly, dragging the pen out of her hair and tugging apart the bun she’d had it tied in with confident strokes, pulling just hard enough to make her want to purr. 

            She giggled more, because wow, _that_ was bad too, and wriggled in his lap, listening to his breath hitch.  “Okay.”  He bit at her neck and she gasped, clutching his shoulders as he smiled into her skin.  “Mm, what should I talk about instead?” she asked mischievously.  “The weather?  I think it’s snowing outside.” 

            “ _Lucrezia_.” 

            She hummed, slipping her hands under his shirt.  “That seems a little egotistical,” she argued cheerfully.  “And I can’t let you get _too_ focused or the cookies will burn, and that would be a _travesty_.” 

            He pulled her in for another kiss and her thoughts scattered long enough that she was a little confused when he pointed out, “I have nine minutes.” 

            “That…”  That was either a really insulting or really hot, depending on how she wanted to take it.  “I’m not sure-”  He slid around her somehow, standing in front of the counter she was now sitting on, gripping her thighs and nibbling at her collarbone, and something in her brain short-circuited at the casual way he manhandled her.  “Mmnn.”  She wove her fingers through his hair, arching into him.  “Lower.”  Teeth grazed her skin and she shivered as he breathed out and pointedly didn’t obey.  “Odin.” 

            His laughter was deep, and rich.  “No rush.” 

            She let out a frustrated groan and pushed at his head, but he didn’t budge, instead latching on a bare _centimeter_ lower and humming. “ _Odin_.” 

            He just laughed. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Theories/favorite things? Dislikes? I’m not changing things if someone doesn’t like it, it doesn’t work like that, but I’ll admit that I’m terribly curious. 
> 
>  There's so many fun things in this chapter. Even aside from the blatant humor - and Odin's ongoing tendency for mood whiplash, holy shit - you start to see everyone just... happier. Not to mention all the mischief underfoot. We get a lot of little details about everyone's lives, TMI and otherwise... but we do still have moments like Mu's grief hitting like a sucker punch. 
> 
> On the original timeline of writing this, I know I fought with the timeline I don’t even know how long before I basically had to throw up my hands and move Jake and Relena fully getting over their lovesick puppy act to the next chapter, but I can promise it’s not delayed more than that. It was a damn good breath of fresh air, though, to finally have Jake back to who he was at the beginning of Survival. The angst was driving me up the wall…
> 
>  
> 
> Otherwise... the original version of the next chapter is literally 62 pages long (>37,000 words). I'm going to start editing it, but it might take a bit... and I'm also going to see if it can be split too, because gah, that's a lot.


	17. Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some secrets are finally shared with the group, while others are outed with unpredictable consequences. Duo tries to extend his information network in response to the latest bombing while Adam fumbles... but Marie helps significantly - while proving that some of Heero's more alarming talents are something that can be learned. The Cambyses survivors are all still working out the kinks for coping mechanisms with varying degrees of success, and Quatre's no exception - though Odin doesn't really appreciate Quatre pointing out when he's doing something similar. 
> 
> And then there's a masquerade ball that... maybe gets abused, a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… I found a mostly viable way to split this one, but it felt weird, and my beta was against it, so it’s here in its original, 61 page glory. All 37,000 words. Be warned that a LOT happens in this chapter, and then it kinda just… keeps on going. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long to edit. Enjoy. 
> 
>  
> 
> \--  
> Edit:  
> \--
> 
> Mostly just grammatical touches and word choice, though again, Revenant Rubato being the name of Odin and Quatre's fledgling social network is pointed out again.

_**-** _

**_Recognition _ **

_\--_

_ The acknowledgement of a single possibility can change everything. _ _– Aberjhani_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**October 21 st 198 – Monday – Assen, Netherlands**

            “Gentlemen,” Minister Darlian-Peacecraft murmured as she swept into the room after the first of her bodyguard.  “May I say that it was a genuine pleasure to be invited here today?” 

            “I’m glad to hear it,” Senator Ono returned easily.  His smile turned a touch mischievous.  “Not that I would have asked, if I thought you might disapprove.” 

            “Oh, naturally,” the princess agreed, smirking.  “But this really _is_ up my alley.”  Shoulders drooping, she sighed.  “And if this can do anything to help prevent another event like Saturday, of course I will support it.” 

            “That _is_ the idea,” Duke Sylvester Joyner agreed somberly, gripping the back of his chair and trying not to watch the young woman’s guards too obviously as they checked over the room.  Two men, one blonde and one dark, and a woman of indistinct descent – brown hair and Asian features with vividly green eyes.  The blonde colonel had been her shadow since she stepped back into the public eye in 197, but it wasn’t uncommon now for her to appear only with the other two.  _All three, today…_  It probably meant nothing, but was worth noting. 

            “The current customs arrangement has long been a hindrance in any case,” Ono continued.  “Honestly, the border was arranged more out of tradition than anything.  The promised security was a comfort after the Fall, but…”  He affected a helpless sort of shrug.  “The reality of the matter is that it was a pointless bit of posturing.  Maintaining national sanctity sounded good after the dissolution of the World Nation, but in reality it’s proven nothing more than a practice in frustration.  Having a more open border will bolster trade as well as allow for faster response times in crisis.  Truthfully, Syl and I had already been in discussion over this before the bombing – it just served as the final push to get everything in motion.” 

            “It makes perfect sense to me,” Relena admitted, allowing the taller of her two men, the lieutenant, pull out a chair for her.  “And it’s hardly the first arrangement of its like I’ve arranged since beginning my term.”  Her smile quirked back into a smirk.  “Though I spent nearly two weeks negotiating the terms between Moldova and Ukraine.” 

            “This is hardly the same,” Sylvester negated as he pulled out his own chair and settled into it.  “We have no recent history of poor relations to work around.”  He pressed his lips together, and considered for a moment before deciding to go ahead and say it.  Everything he had both seen himself and heard about others’ interactions with the princess of Sanc implied that transparency was prudent.  “We tried to involve Duchess Lydia Pinion and Duke Gerard Bristow, but they were… hesitant.  Perhaps once this is well received, they will change their tune.” 

            Relena hummed, pulling the file left in front of her closer and opening it.  “Many find it easier to follow the crowd than lead.” 

            “Perhaps they shouldn’t be leading their people, then,” James offered sarcastically. 

            “Not everyone is an elected official, man,” Sylvester reminded the senator. 

            “Maybe they _should_ be,” his friend pointed out in a cool tone, re-igniting an old argument. 

            An argument that Sylvester really _didn’t_ want to be having in front of a _princess_ _of the_ _Regime_ , but evidently, the Dutchman didn’t consider that a decent deterrent, so here they went. 

            “A complete democracy moves too slowly for the current world climate.  To be frank, they move too slowly even in a peaceful setting, and it’s only worked as well as it has in your country because you’re too small for anyone to bother with.”  As it currently stood, the Netherlands was self-sufficient enough to be insular, without any boons great enough to be worth pressuring.  _If only Germany could be so peaceful._   But with greater resources and wealth came greater conflict, and therefore greater responsibility. 

            “Lydia has more to lose if this is rejected,” Sylvester pointed out.  His childhood friend had _wanted_ to join them, but had valid concerns about going first, considering her long border to Poland that she wasn’t ready to open.  She didn’t have the same close working relationship with the Macklin family that he and James had spent over a decade fostering, and the Macklins… didn’t have the best reputation. 

            “Did you put out any feelers for Countess Shiavonne?” Relena asked curiously without looking up from her papers. 

            _Oh, please don’t._   He knew better than to hope, but he really didn’t want to be on the Minister’s bad side. 

            “ _Years_ ago,” James returned in a scathing tone.  “But Esther has no say – your brother only keeps her as a placeholder for Belgium, and he has no interest.” 

            Relena only sighed.  “Naturally.”  Still not looking up, she shook her head and sarcastically added, “Since solidarity meant _so_ much when the Brussels compound was put under siege.” 

            “He would argue that you handled it fine without help,” James pointed out, eyes intense as he studied the young woman. 

            “Yes, let’s rely on good fortune and the intimidation tactics of a few paranoid bodyguards alongside brute force,” the princess deadpanned, flipping a page.  “Excellent idea.” 

            Her lieutenant let out a groan.  “That night was a total shitshow.” 

            “We should have stayed in Germany,” Relena agreed without batting an eye. 

            “But too much of what we have now came from that,” the colonel pointed out.  “The news coverage, Amsterdam…  I don’t think we’d have picked up Sergeant Polanski if we hadn’t gone back that night.” 

            The princess smiled again, finally looking up to toss a sly look back at the blonde.  “I suppose Hayden was worth the bullet wound,” she agreed in a dry tone.  Turning back to the two of them, she finally met first Sylvester’s eyes, then James’.  “If it counts for anything, I’m personally in favor of a meritocratic system similar to what L1 uses.  We’d have to alter it significantly to get it accepted, but it would at least be a step in the right direction.”  She raised a brow.  “I may be a Peacecraft, Senator, but I was raised a Darlian, and I know exactly how little power the democratic party held under the Alliance.  I’m not interested in creating another puppet theater; if a classless system cannot keep pace on an executive level, I won’t support it.” 

            Sylvester felt almost as though she had kicked him in the gut.  “Executive level?” he tried to clarify before James could make more of an ass of himself. 

            The look she gave him was skeptical.  “I should think that actions speak louder than words.  I’ve always supported elections on the local level.  It’s only when things move beyond city management that the situation grows more dubious.”  Focusing back on James, she continued.  “That said, the Netherlands, at least, has been proving it’s entirely viable thus far; only time will tell for its longevity.”  She considered the papers for another long moment before shrugging and sliding the packet in the direction of her colonel.  “Make sure that matches what we read before arriving, please.”  Looking back at the somewhat stunned officials at the table with her, she asked, “Senator, I don’t suppose you know a good local eatery with good coffee?  You sound like someone whose brain I’d like to pick for another hour or so, while we have the time.”  Her eyes flicked back to Sylvester.  “I’m more impressed by your taste in friends every time we meet, your Grace; my thanks for the introduction.” 

            She _was_ extraordinarily good at toeing the line between old world formality and the working class, wasn’t she? 

            “I… am not very familiar with this area,” James admitted, swallowing his surprise.  “I usually work out of Groningen.” 

            “Fair enough.”  The princess turned to the female major in her entourage.  “Ask Marsden to pick something for an early lunch, please.” 

            The woman nodded easily, tipping her chin up and smiling at them as she pulled out her phone.  “Do we need to account for any dietary restrictions, Gentlemen?” 

            “Ah, tomato allergy,” James admitted.  “But that’s fairly easy to avoid.” 

            “That it is,” she agreed happily, tapping at her screen.  “Plated?” she asked curiously as an aside to her princess. 

            “I don’t see why not,” Relena agreed.  “No pork; Duke Joyner doesn’t much care for it.” 

            That wasn’t a detail he ever would have expected her to remember from their prior encounters.  Still, he was more familiar with the city than James, and if they were allowing the boundaries to fall this far already…  “I’m partial to Vietnamese,” he offered, knowing his friend was as well.  “I know a good restaurant on the eastern end of town; Photastic.” 

            Relena’s smile was bright.  “That sounds _excellent_.”  She settled her elbows on the table and leaned forward.  “Now tell me a little more about your long-term goals here.  I can guess, but I’d rather clear the air.” 

-

***

-

**Prague, Czech Republic**

            _“Picking up things we shouldn’t read, Looks like the end of history as we know…”_.

            Sally smiled as she peered through the open doorway, listening to Lucrezia sing along with the music.  The younger woman was flowing through the room more than walking, all liquid grace. 

            She’d seen her happy before, but it had always been more manic; that spark of joy mixed with action, not this easy peace. 

            _“Back to the street where we began, Feeling as good as love, You could, You can…”_   Lu caught sight of her as she turned to pull something else out of her bag and grinned.  “Hey, you.” 

            Sally chuckled and came the rest of the way into the room, holding up her package as an offering.  “I was going to ask if you had a good time,” she announced.  “But I don’t really think I need to.” 

            Lucrezia’s smile brightened even more as she reached for it.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was a romantic.” 

            Sally came closer and handed the box over.  “What is he instead, then?” 

            “Observant.  Attentive.  Thorough.”  She considered the wrapping for a moment, obviously trying to decide what it had been.  “Unbelievably _thorough_.”  The last word was delivered with almost a purr, her eyes half-mast. 

            _Damn._   This wasn’t just happy – it was a level beyond.  _Go Heero._  

            “This… is a printout of last week’s soft supply inventory for our western Germany safehouses.”  Lu’s brows ticked up.  “Which is either really inaccurate or a really big fucking problem.” 

            “It’s taken care of,” Sally reassured her.  “I chewed out the tech who screwed up for you.  Happy birthday – feel free to tear that into tiny little pieces.” 

            Her general cackled and promptly tore off a scrap to toss in her face, then smiled broadly as she read the label.  “‘Death Wish Coffee?’” 

            Sally smirked.  “Considering who you just had a weekend getaway with, I thought it was pretty on target.” 

            Lucrezia started laughing helplessly as she ripped the rest of the impromptu wrapping off her gift.  “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?  I’ve never even heard of this brand before, where-”  She cut herself off with a choke as she flipped the little bag over and read the details.  “ _Sally_!” 

            “Yeeeess?” she trilled back, feeling proud of herself. 

            “You can’t just…”  She trailed off and held the package to her stomach before staring up at the other woman, wide-eyed.  “This is _Peruvian_.” 

            “Yes, it is.” 

            Her eyes stayed huge and turned pleading.  “How am I supposed to drink _priceless Peruvian coffee_?” she demanded. 

            “Happily, I hope.” 

            The other woman groaned.  “This is ridiculous,” she protested.  “How did you even find it?  I can’t believe you’d spend _money_ on this, it had to have cost-” 

            “I have connections,” Sally reminded her.  “And it was a gift, so don’t worry about it.  I just thought I’d pass it on to someone who’d actually appreciate it.”  She’d learned to drink coffee out of self-preservation in medical school and the habit had stayed with her after, but she had never much _enjoyed_ it.  “So.”  She smiled again, pointedly leaning into her friend’s personal space to peer up into her face, since she’d started looking down as she fussed.  “Happy birthday.” 

            Lucrezia groaned and pulled her into a hug, sniffing.  “You’re the best, you know that?”  

            She hugged her back.  “I don’t know about that,” she hedged.  “But I try.” 

-

***

-

**October 22 nd 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Hey.” 

            Relena jumped at the sudden realization that someone was right behind her – but even as her adrenaline spiked, she recognized him enough that she only twitched her earmuffs into the wall instead of setting them down on the counter next to her gun and glasses.  Before she could so much as look over her shoulder, however, Jake’s chest was to her back.  “Hey,” she gasped, heart _racing_. 

            He hummed as he settled his weight, shoulders framing hers like when he had first begun teaching her to shoot.  “You’re keyed up.”  He was speaking almost into the skin of the back of her neck, which ought to have been ticklish, but…  _In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that none of this had started before my lessons,_ she thought dimly, the rest of the world fading into something hazy and slow.  _I might be still learning the basics._  

            “A little.”  She swallowed hard, suppressing a shiver as he ran his hands down her arms and briefly fiddled with her fingers as though at a loss before interlacing them with his own.  Another thoughtful moment later, he drew their arms across her body, settling joined hands at the opposite hip before pulling her ever so slightly closer.  The position had her leaning back just enough that she would have been off balance had he not been there to fall into. 

            A hint of stubble brushed along her skin as he dragged his face up to bury his nose in her hair and take a few slow, deliberate breaths.  “Sorry.  I thought you noticed me come in.” 

            She giggled disbelievingly – she didn’t buy that for a _moment_ – and relaxed into him a little more, twisting her head to try and see his expression.  All she managed, though, was an eyeful of layered golden hair as he tucked his face back into her neck, hiding his eyes.  “Just where have you been, lately?” she wondered aloud, feeling playful. 

            _God, but I missed this._   Not that they had ever been quite _this_ casually intimate, but it had been so long since they began their dance of empty gestures and touch.  The last time she could remember so few barriers between them had been in Brussels.  _No,_ she realized a moment later.  No, maybe this smoldering attraction that they had used as a justification to start distancing themselves had been absent, but they had always kept walls between them even as they dissolved others.  Now… 

            There were secrets still to be shared, now, but the urgency was gone.  With the terrible truths they had used as excuses to hold the other at arms’ length even when touching skin to skin out in the open?  All the questions had been stripped away, and at the center of it, it was only the two of them left.  Without all the lies festering, she could finally, _truly_ relax… 

            It was _glorious_. 

            “Mm.”  He seemed to think about it for a long moment before offering, “Everywhere but here?” 

            She closed her eyes, still more tension seeping out of her.  “That might explain a few things.” 

            He brought his head back up to rest his cheek flush to hers.  “I have this bad habit,” he admitted slowly.  “Of thinking I can plan and maneuver my way out of anything.”  He sighed, arms tightening for a moment before trying again.  “It never hits me that I might not _want_ to follow through on a plan until suddenly my brain’s so far ahead of my heart that I can’t… I can’t figure out where the two came apart and I just…  flail around.”  He sighed again, frustrated.  “In the dark.  Trying to find my way back.” 

            “Mm.  There are worse habits,” she assured him.  “And in your defense, you don’t do it very often.” 

            His grip tightened painfully for a moment before abruptly going slack.  Surprise quickly spun into something close to panic and she clung to him, refusing to let their intertwined grip move from her waist until he regained himself a moment later.  “Well, rare or not, until now, the consequences have always been really…  Permanent.” 

            _Oh, Jake._   He had such a severe tendency to see the common line between all the ill that happened to him as _himself_ , and that…  She knew from personal experience just how slippery that slope could become.  The heart had a way of only remembering boons or slights when least convenient. 

            But while she could relate, that didn’t make his little episode of self-disgust any less absurd. 

            “I should hope,” she pointed out in a mild tone, “that the consequences of this are permanent too.” 

            He froze again for a long moment and then… as though a dam had burst, suddenly he was flowing around her curves, peppering kisses up her hairline.  Biceps flexing against her ribs, he dragged her palms down her body, down past her hips with wrists still crossed with enough pressure that she shifted up and back without thinking and would have been _mortified_ if he hadn’t gasped into her hair and ground against her in response.  Instead, she found herself stretching up on her toes to give him more reach, a tingling warmth spreading under her skin like fire from the friction of her jeans against her thighs. 

            Jake hissed, body shuddering as he nipped at her neck, as if in reprimand.  “Stop that.” 

            Relena grinned instead, straightening out her fingers and leaning further back, pushing down and sliding up against his body at the same time – focused on the way his breath stuttered with hers, on feeling her heartbeat _everywhere_. 

            He groaned, yanking their arms tight back around her ribs and picking her up to resettle her on her feet.  “ _Not_ helping.” 

            Whatever it was he thought she ought to help with, it was obviously stupid.  She stood upright again though, mostly because it was that or hang her weight and make him drop to the floor with her like a child.  _Besides, there are easier ways._   “Do it again,” she demanded, testing his grip. 

            He pressed his face into her neck again, the scrape of his whiskers searing yet more heat into her bones.  She could feel his heart fluttering against her spine, no longer its usual steady beat, and that made her own thunder harder.  “ _Relena_ ,” he whined in protest. 

            “Do it again,” she insisted, the fabric of her shirt buzzing across her shoulders as she tried to burrow deeper into his chest. 

            He grunted, holding her more tightly to stop her from moving, then let out air like a popped balloon when he realized that was the _point_.  “If I do it again,” he practically growled, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to _stop_.” 

            She… had surprisingly few compunctions with that.  She made herself stop and turn the idea over a few more times in her head, but…  “Do it _again_ ,” she repeated. 

            This time he laughed, breathless.  “ _Fuck_ , Lena, you _know_ I haven’t done any of this before, I haven’t even kissed you yet-” 

            “There is _literally nothing_ stopping you,” she interrupted pointedly, dropping her head back to try to meet his eyes again.  The heat was fading into something more numb as she tried to calm down, clammy and feverish all at once. 

            “You’re _insane_ ,” he snapped, exasperated.  “I need to at _least_ take you out to dinner first.” 

            She resisted the urge to grind her teeth.  “Jake,” she grit out.  “My life is _not_ a sitcom, we can’t go out to dinner.”  The paparazzi alone made that a horrible idea; she didn’t need anyone else’s opinion on the appropriateness of her love life. 

            He sighed and pressed his cheek to hers, tightening his grip.  “I know.  I’m working on it, okay?  Maybe not dinner.” 

            Closing her eyes, she tried to relax, letting him hold her.  “Please tell me you’re not going to spend another three weeks ironing out the details.” 

            His sigh was ragged.  “I can’t do this for three more weeks.” 

            “I’m not sure I can do _one_ week.” 

            He froze for a moment, tapping out a pattern against her ribs with his fingertips, then pressed his lips to the underside of her jaw in another kiss.  “Okay,” he decided in a breathless voice.  “Okay, I can work with a deadline.” 

            She groaned and pressed into him again, the numb of her skin reigniting into static electricity.  “I’ll remember that.” 

            The buzzer for the door to the range went off before the door was slammed open.  “So!  You have maybe three minutes before Illian and Hayden meet me for target practice,” Lin announced loudly.  “And I feel like I should point out that you’re standing in front of the observation window.” 

            Oh _God_ , they really were standing in the damned shooting range; she hadn’t even called her target back.  _I just tried to-_   She felt like her face might actually be able to light a candle.  Jake let go of her hands and she dropped them to the counter, resting her weight there as her legs shuddered, feeling like she’d been doused with ice.  From the corner of her eye, she could see Jake drop heavily against the wall of the cubicle she’d been using. “Sorry!” she gasped out. 

            Lin snorted, sounding amused.  “Yeah, I really don’t care.  Just thought you might appreciate the heads up.  Have fun.”  She could hear him walk a few steps away before the door fell shut again. 

            She didn’t look to the side when Jake moved, but she was pretty sure he was covering his face with both hands.  “Sometimes,” he announced after a long moment, “I regret pulling that man out of his shell.  Or introducing him to Mai.” 

            That…  That.  Yes.  He might have a point. 

            Fighting to gather her nerves, she stared down at her open revolver, breathing hard.  The raging fire under her skin had vanished – instead, she felt as though she had a heavy, live coal buried deep in her gut. 

            “Relena?” 

            _Reignite, or douse?_  

            She closed her eyes, centering herself.  “One week, Jake.”  She had no idea what she would do if he ignored the ultimatum, but she couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t even _more_ of an absolute demand. 

            He’d figure it out. 

            “Right.  One week.”  He sounded winded. 

            “Or less,” she added, lifting her head enough to look down the lane at her spent target. 

            “Right.  Got it.”  He cleared his throat.  “I’ll just…” 

            Her stomach fluttered in a way that was either ecstasy or nausea, and she’d never imagined those might be so similar.  Licking her lips, she squeezed her eyes shut again and tried to remember the room’s camera angles.  “If you are still here when I turn around, I’m not sure what will happen,” she began.  “Beyond regretting that it will have been recorded on a computer _that someone is probably watching right now_.” 

            “…I’m… going to go take care of that.”  A moment later, the door slammed open again, and she was alone. 

            Relena took another deep breath in and out… and stood all the way up, hitting the switch to call back the paper hanger.  It was far too early to feel this spent – she had an entire day to get through yet.  

            All the same though…  _One week._  

            She had something to look forward to. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “I hate you.” 

            “You’ll get over it,” Shov told him.  “It sucks like hell right now, but it’s the only way out and the more we do this the sooner you can quit climbing the walls and hating everything.” 

            Will groaned but didn’t try to pull back from the stretch, for all that he was shaking.  “Doesn’t change the fact,” he gasped out. 

            “You’ll thank me when you can stand to be vertical for more than two hours at a go,” Shov argued.  “You’re done with the really hard part of the pain; now you just have to be stubborn enough to push through the rest.” 

            “You’re full of shit and your pep talks suck,” Will groused. 

            “Yeah, I know.  Nothing to really do about it, though.”  In any case, Shov knew he’d said _way_ worse to the nurses helping him through physio than Will could come up with, so he wasn’t going to take it personally. 

            Physical therapy fucking _sucked_.  It really didn’t matter if you had top of the line care like the princess had arranged for him or just somebody helping you through your routines every day like he was with ‘Liss’s dad – it made you hurt and so exhausted you wanted to sleep for a week, then depressed because it really shouldn’t be so hard to move a little and you knew it.  Rehab was just one of those crappy things you had to go through to get better, and he knew it better than anyone else in their hodgepodge family; he’d only been cleared to work full time again last week. 

            _Cleared for a **desk** job._   He wouldn’t be up for patrolling again for months, maybe not even for a year, and didn’t that _burn_.  He knew he ought to be happy he had a job at all, let alone one that would make allowances for how close he’d come to dying last year, but it still made him feel utterly fucking useless.  Helping Will get through his own rehab was the least he could do, especially when he could see that trying to do it himself was breaking Kay into pieces.  Nolan wouldn’t confront him on it when he tried to skip, and the last time Melissa had pressed it had turned into a screaming match across the Den.  Kay had the stomach to bully the old man through it, but it fucked with his head, and, well…  If he was honest, Shov needed to do _something_ to help after how long he’d been away. 

            Browbeating ‘Liss’s old man out of the puddle of misery and depression he turned into if left alone too long was a really weird way to reconnect with his childhood, but, well…  Will Mehile was really the only adult _left_ from his old neighborhood. 

            Wasn’t that a trip?  Not that he’d thought of himself as _not_ an adult for a good six years, but…  Nobody his parents’ age seemed to be around anymore.  Other than some of the staff at Ritafore, the oldest people he _knew_ were probably the guys who ran the local pubs, Bryce and Jérémy, and they were only about ten years older than him, in their thirties.  Then he supposed there was Kay’s old boss, Tatem, who was probably pushing seventy, but… 

            Where had all the middle-aged people gone? 

            “Come on, one more set and I’ll let you go be a sad little puddle of human,” Shov decided.  He _was_ doing better; and he’d always thought it was easier to get through when the PT was sarcastic.  Besides, ‘Liss and Nolan were sassy little shits once you got past the layer of polite they pushed at strangers, and they had to have gotten it somewhere. 

            “Right,” Will grumbled, and started to _actually_ reach for it. 

            Shov rolled his eyes.  “You know, if you started like that, this wouldn’t be this bad.” 

            “No,” the other man disagreed, shaking as he continued.  “It’d be _worse_.” 

            “I’m telling your kids you’re a big, whiney baby.” 

            Will scoffed, not looking at him.  “They knew that.” 

            _God_ , but he could be obnoxious.  “Man, rock that pride, asshole.” 

            “When _you_ ,” the man gasped out, “are old and tired-” 

            “Yeah, I’ll tell everyone ‘bout how badass I was walking uphill to school both ways, not how I wanna give up because shit’s hard,” Shov cut off.  “You’ve made it awfully far to let something like _getting better_ drop you, man.” 

            It was a relief when the bells on the front door chimed, and he stood up, heading for the stairs.  He pointed and glared back at the man as he walked away, but Will just ignored him.  On the other hand, he was finishing his damn set of strength exercises without being loomed over – so he was going to call it a win. 

            “Hello?” 

            _English._   He smiled as he came out onto the banister.  “Welcome to New Renew!”  Unaccented, so probably not a local, but he looked like pretty local stock.  “Can I help you?” 

            The man’s lips twitched in something halfway between a smile and grimace.  “You’re not Kasey so… no.  I don’t think so.” 

            Shov rolled his eyes.  “Cute.  The lady von Koll should be back from a house call shortly, but Kasey won’t be in until the day after tomorrow.” 

            “Ah.”  He frowned, looking around the little office front as Shov came the rest of the way down the stairs.  “Damn.” 

            “Was… there a reason you wanted him specifically?”  Usually customers were appeased with Melissa, he’d gathered, but if it was delicate, well…  People could get touchy about their electronics.  On the other hand, he wasn’t carrying anything, even a backpack, so it either had to be small or… maybe just a consult? 

            The man shrugged.  “I was hoping to get his opinion on something.”  He shifted his weight restlessly.  “I guess I can come back Thursday, if you’re sure he won’t be back this afternoon.” 

            Shov tried to force his instincts back down as he realized the fabric of the guy’s shirt moved _just_ enough wrong that he probably had a gun against his back.  A lot of people packed heat; he carried a gun most of the time, and had for years now.  “Pretty sure, though I can’t be positive,” he confirmed, trying to stay relaxed.  “I’ll probably see him later tonight, but that’s after shop hours; I could give him a message?  But he’ll be here all day Thursday.”  He’d have school set up in the loft for the rest of the week.  Normally he did that on all weekdays, but… 

            Well, he was cooking up _something_ running around like he was, but he hadn’t been interested in explaining, and Melissa’d said to just leave it for another couple days, so he was.  She and Rina had always been best at figuring out how to handle their American turned Dutchman. 

            Man, he had to bite back a freaking giggle every time he heard someone refer to Kay like that!  How many months had it been after he’d arrived before they’d stopped giving him shit for slipping into English or talking with an accent?  Now it seemed like no one outside the Devils even remembered he’d been just another American refugee after _Libra_.  Well, not really, because he was colonial, but they’d all assumed he was just another transplant that had managed to dodge the eastern states and Africa because his Dutch was passable.  Those two least stable areas post-Fall had been the Regime’s favorite dumping grounds for the displaced survivors, after all. 

            “I’ll just come back,” the customer decided, waving absently in a dismissive way.  “Everyone deserves their days off, right?” 

            That was totally _not_ what was going on – he wasn’t sure Kay knew what a vacation even _was_ – but he wasn’t going to say that.  “Can’t argue with that,” he agreed laughingly instead.  “Have a good day, mm?” 

            His smile was quiet, but he nodded respectfully as he opened the door again, making the bells chime.  “Thank-you.” 

            “Who was that?” Will called down. 

            “Just some guy.  You done yet?” 

            He made an irritated noise.  “Almost.  What’d he look like?” 

            “I dunno, like _some guy_ ,” Shov returned, starting back up the stairs.  “Who cares?” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s House**

            “Hello?” 

            _“Please tell me you have a master plan for Halloween that I can commandeer.”_  

            Dorothy smiled broadly, sinking back in her chaise, feet up on the arm.  “Of course I do,” she purred.  “Just who did you think you were calling?” 

            The sound he made was half laughter, but also somewhat strangled; it wasn’t a very Jake noise, but she supposed everyone had bad days.  _“And?”_  

            “Mm…”  She pulled her phone away from her ear and checked the time.  “You have a fitting appointment in two hours; don’t be late.” 

            _“Don’t troll me, Thea.”_  

            She grinned; she had assumed he would catch on, but it had been worth a try.  “No, really, she’s waiting for you.” 

            _“And how long has she been waiting, exactly?”_  

            One of the more fantastic things about Jake was that he knew how to ask the _right_ questions.  “Only eight days or so.”  Truthfully, she had started to worry that he wouldn’t gather the nerve until they were only a day out.  Pulling up her chat program, she sent a quick text to the discreet seamstress Olivia preferred.  “Beyond that, the details are sorted.  All you have to do is relax and go with the flow.” 

            He chuckled.  _“You have **met** me, right?  Sometime during the past two years?”_  

            “Maybe once or twice,” she returned happily.  “Oh, that reminds me – you realize you’ve traumatized Vaughn?” 

            _“I’d hardly call it **trauma** ,”_ he defended, trying not to laugh. 

            “He seems both intimidated and confused, as well as anxious,” she argued.  “I’m fairly sure that meets the definition.”  Rolling onto her stomach, she pointed out, “You’ve been so careful about displays before now.  What changed?” 

            _“Oh, I was wondering if you’d noticed,”_ he announced happily instead of answering.  _“Relena seems to think I bum money off her brother when I get her nice things.”_  

            Dorothy rolled her eyes.  “And how exactly would you have validated the florist under expenses?” 

            _“I didn’t buy the florist.”_   There was still laughter in his voice.  _“That’s illegal.”_  

            She smirked.  “But you _could_ have.” 

            _“Wouldn’t be worth the effort,”_ he agreed by way of denial.  _“When did you figure it out?”_  

            “I had my suspicions last year,” she admitted.  “But the clubs gave it away.”  He regularly spent what ought to have been his salary on random children when he toured with Relena, but he had virtually no living expenses while Relena was under his care – it had been unlikely, but feasible, considering how even in Sarracenia he lived a fairly minimalist lifestyle.  But he hadn’t batted an eye at the outfitting cost for taking her clubbing… and he hadn’t spared a single expense either.  He hadn’t balked at gaining more of the same quality when she suggested it, and the high carat sapphires he wore in one ear were set in platinum. 

            And he never hesitated when it came to bribes.  _That_ mindset was more telling than anything else. 

            _“Mm, fair enough.”_

            “Relena knows you work for RLTT,” she continued, debating what she could get out of him.  “So do you have a second income there, or access to a trust fund?” 

            He sputtered out a delighted laugh.  _“ **Does** she?”_  

            Dorothy scowled.  _Well, that puts a dampener on that theory._   Probably, at least; it sounded like an authentic reaction, but it was _Jake_.  “Are you going to tell her any differently?” 

            _“Soon.”_   He let out a deep sigh.  _“I’m mostly there now, so if I don’t explain before December, call me out on it.”_  

            “Can I tell her we talked about this?” she asked curiously, turning on one side. 

            He sighed again.  _“If you’re offering, I’d really rather you didn’t.  I’m telling her everything… probably within two weeks, but absolutely before December, and I’d like to do it myself.  I just…”_  

            “You can’t be scared of how she’ll react,” Dorothy argued.  

            _“No, but I’m taking the opportunity of Lena crashing my brain to reorganize.”_   He made an irritated noise.  _“It’s… hard, okay?  But the way I’m sorting through everything, I…  I need to make sure I never do something like this again.  When I was a kid, my uncle was the only authority I respected, and even after that, the closest anyone got was somebody whose opinion I’d **consider** before I decided what I’d do, and that’s…  It’s dumb, okay?  I’m a grown-ass man with responsibilities and people I care about, who care about me back, and it took a total mental breakdown that lasted for **months** to make me realize I’m sick of playing lone wolf.  That’s… that’s really fucking bad, Thea.  Now that I’m on the other side of it looking back, that’s **monumentally** bad.  It needs to never happen again, and that means actually trusting the people I tell myself to trust, and working up a set of checks and balances that exist somewhere outside of my own brain, where I can’t just toss them aside when they get inconvenient.  _

_“It’s… it’s about discipline, and recognizing where I went wrong and what I should do differently and…  Damn it, I need to call Jack and just… say I’m sorry for being such a dick when all he ever tried to do was the right thing, because I **know** how my uncle was and…”_   He shuddered hard, like he was stifling tears.  _“Dorothy… there is no way in **hell** I’d leave a child with my uncle or more than a few weeks.  But I **can’t** make myself tell my father that he was right to try to take us away.  I know I would do the same goddamn thing if I had been in his shoes, and I’ve known it for years, but I hate him – and do you know why?”_  

            She closed her eyes, curling up with her knees to her chest.  She _did_ know the answer, though the magnitude was beyond what she could _understand_.  “He didn’t save you both.” 

            _“And there was no way he could’ve!”_ he practically exploded.  _“My mom divorced him while he was in prison; he didn’t even get any say in it, he just got served the papers then didn’t get any news from us until he was released, years later.  She never even told him she was pregnant.  He got out of an Alliance hellhole and pulled every trick in the book to hunt me down, and when he finally caught up, he found out she **wasn’t** his vindictive ex he was determined to talk around, she was **dead** , and he had a three-year-old who thought putting guns together was a **game**!”_  

            Her stomach lurched, and she curled up tighter, trying to imagine… then wishing she couldn’t.  She had known enough of Jake’s past before now to realize his childhood had viciously dark undertones, but she hadn’t tried to guess at the details. 

 _“Fuck, Odin even put his own name down on the kid’s birth certificate, so the only claim Jack could make was genetics, and he wouldn’t use any of the ethical arguments he could have tried to make about how Odin wasn’t a suitable parent because any evidence would have **accused me of murder**.”_  

            Dorothy swallowed.  _Jake would have only been… six, maybe seven years old?_  

 _“And that’s presuming an ex-con could even get that to hold water in the first place when my uncle was **damn** good at covering his tracks.  He just…”_   Jake let out a weak, broken laugh.  _“He did the best he could in a really awful situation, and I’ve hated him for it for fourteen years.  I’ve directed all this **shit** at him because the man who raised me killed himself out of guilt before I was old enough to understand.”_  

            If she wasn’t already trying so hard to not cry, she thought she might retch.  She didn’t have anything in her stomach _to_ throw up, but it cramped like she was about to try anyway. 

_“Then with Junior gone…  It’s never stopped being so raw that I can stand to think about it long enough to make any peace with it.  I have issues, and because I’ve refused to even **try** to work through them, I’ve continually made my father’s life hell out of misplaced spite.  I can’t…  I can’t let myself be that person anymore.  I **can’t**.  _

_“I don’t know how to fix it yet, but Relena…  I can’t afford to lie to myself any more.  Not about Relena, not about my family…  I already have to rebuild myself, so I’m going to do it right this time.  No lies to Lena, and none to me.  After that…  I’ll just have to figure it out as I go.”_   His voice hitched and he forced another laugh.  _“Fuck…  Sorry for the melodrama.  Are you okay?”_  

            Dorothy wiped at her eyes and sat up, trying not to sniff.  “Are you?” 

            He scoffed at her, but the sound was wet.  _“Haven’t you been listening?  Of course I’m not.  Also?  Lame attempt at a misdirect.”_   There was another damp noise, then his voice came back on, clearer this time.  _“Come on, you can do better than that.”_  

            “I’m not in the mood,” she returned shortly before muting the phone to breathe deep, wiping her cheeks clean again; hopefully she didn’t sound nearly as congested as she felt. 

            Jake groaned.  _“Damn.”_   There was an uneasy silence for a long moment before he changed the subject.  _“Do I at least get to know where we’re going?  I just got a text from a seamstress saying she wants me in her workshop in forty minutes, by the way, and I maybe hate you right now.”_  

            She allowed herself one last shudder before turning off the mute.  “Zurich.”  She closed her eyes.  “And before you argue, we’ve already worked out the details with Lincoln and Mai.”  It would involve a Marsden, Mai, and Vaughn going ahead with her and some blatant subterfuge with Daniella, but the Fonnes had already agreed and Leia had been thrilled to play a part in the act as well.  They had all explored the possible avenues this could take if something went poorly, and in the unlikely event that they were discovered, measures were already prepared that would guarantee the publicity would only help the Princess’s image. 

            He huffed.  _“Zurich.  Damn.”_   There was some rustling on the other end of the line as he presumably got ready to leave.  _“Dates?”_  

            She smirked.  “Relena, of course.  And maybe Vaughn, for me.” 

            He snorted.  _“Good luck with that.  Seriously though, when?”_  

            “Stop overthinking it,” she admonished. 

            He grumbled at her.  _“My…  Jack lives in Baden.”_  

            “O…kay?”  What did that have to do with anything? 

            He made an irrigated noise.  _“Swiss Baden, not German.  It’s, like, thirty minutes from downtown Zurich.”_  

            _Oh._   Then she really thought about it, with everything he’d poured out, and…   ** _Oh_** _._   “Ella will be coming to meet us on the thirty-first; Lin said it worked best to pick up Relena’s itinerary from there.” 

            _“Thanks,”_ he told her, voice tight.  _“That’s… that’ll work out great.”_  

            She bit her lip, feeling remarkably awkward.  “You’re welcome.” 

            _“For everything,”_ he added, sounding a little more relaxed.  _“I…_ ”  He gusted out another sigh, and his next words sounded exhausted.  _“I needed that.  Thank-you.”_  

            Something warm curled up in her chest, and she smiled, laying back down.  “That’s what friends are for.” 

            _“You sound better too.”_  

            “Well, you cheered back up,” she pointed out wryly. 

            _“No, I mean…  The last time we went out, before you befriended Olivia.  You were… dark.  You wouldn’t tell me what was bothering you, but…  It’s better?”_  

            _Before you attacked David.  Before we started working behind your back to pull apart your lies._   July felt like another lifetime.  _The last time you asked me to keep a secret._  

            She had refused to tell him before, and she still felt like it was the right decision.  _I won’t tell him now either – not until I’m sure.  Not until there’s no way to turn back._   She didn’t think he would try to change her mind, but if he did?  The man had a silver tongue. 

            She couldn’t give him the opportunity to talk her down from this path.  Too much was at stake… and she didn’t think she had ever wanted something so badly either. 

            “Yes,” she told him.  “It’s not fixed yet, but… it’s better.”  It would still be some months before she knew if she had succeeded, after all. 

            _“You still don’t want my help?”_   His tone was… not quite depressed, but reserved.  Tentative, as though he were unsure if she appreciated the offer. 

            But she did.  She was relying on it, in truth.  “Not just yet.  I have it in hand for now.” 

            _“Will you tell me, someday?”_  

            He still sounded hesitant, but hopeful too, and she felt bad; she had never intended to make him feel as though she didn’t trust him, but that was how it must look.  “Absolutely.”  She wasn’t sure she could have gathered the courage to go through with it if she hadn’t had his support to fall back on. 

            He might be terribly chagrined when he looked back on this conversation later.  He might even lecture her.  But he’d never turn her away. 

            _“Alright.  I need to get in the car.”_  

            “I’ll talk to you later,” she reassured him before ending the call.  Dropping her phone on the table next to her, she stretched, debating what else she had to get done before next week.  Not much, truth told, which was something of a surprise, considering how much time she had taken for herself this month; she probably needed to ask Relena to increase her workload.  The princess was _drowning_ between all her self-assigned duties under RLTT and the monstrous weight she now carried as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Dorothy and Olivia had been running interference for that since the start of their alliance, and she found the other woman was a tremendous help in gaining the ground they needed to craft Relena’s future court, but if she had this much downtime right now…   _Olivia is coddling me._  

            She appreciated the thought, but if it had gotten to the point where she noticed, it was time to pick up the slack, before the other woman began to buckle under the pressure.  Wrinkling her nose, she picked her phone back up and tapped out a text to her friend pointing it out… and sighed. 

            Work ethic aside, a nap sounded _heavenly_ right now. 

            Setting her phone on her stomach, she settled more comfortably against her pillow and closed her eyes, listening to her boys move about the house.  She didn’t think they were all in at the moment, but she could hear Alexis talking to someone, and Nan rarely remembered the outdoors _existed_ , much less visited.  If she strained her ears, she thought she could hear BJ pacing his office in measured strides, probably thinking deeply – perhaps analyzing the O’Bremski campaign that had included subtly pointing out the advantages of an automated attack force.  It didn’t feel like anything more dangerous than a testing of the waters to her, but she didn’t have the resources or position to poke at the coals of that fire. 

            And it was the sort of thing that pricked the ears of her boys. 

            It was _adorable_ how they believed she hadn’t noticed how Mitchell had staffed her house with a fledgling intelligence organization.  She wondered how long she could continue to get away with leaving hints of situations she needed leverage against about the house where the boys would conveniently find them.  They had been very careful so far about exactly how information came back to her, but she had gone about it deliberately, setting a pattern, after the second time.  They would pick up on the game eventually – the only question was _when_. 

            She was somewhat concerned that she might spook them if she approached directly, though.  However the colonel had found them, it couldn’t have been by legitimate means.  Most likely, they were the remnants of a splinter cell of an anti-Alliance paramilitary group – which, given her family, meant they were likely wary of her.  At the same time, however, they _had_ moved into her house, looked after her needs, and helped her politically whether she asked outright or not.  And she trusted Mitchell to not integrate any who might be a danger to her – at least, not without adequate warning. 

            Therefore, eventually they would become comfortable enough with her to approach.  In the meantime, Lindsay was an excellent cook, Nan was an older, more absent-minded version of Hayden, Alexis was sweet, and Tristan and B.J. handled everything with a casual competence that reminded her strongly of Jake – those two must have had prior training, though by who was anyone’s guess.  Offering sanctuary and bankrolling their activities would give her more credit down the line, so she had no compunctions about waiting until they caught her out. 

            It was soothing to hear others going about their business in a safe place…  It reminded her of home.  Before her father had died; when everyone still had better things to do than bother her. 

            She could relax for now.  If someone needed her, they would call. 

-

***

-

**October 24 th 198 – Thursday –Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “He’s not here right now,” the breathtakingly beautiful blonde informed him with a customer service sort of smile.  “Can I pass a message?” 

            Adam smiled charmingly in return, despite how irritating this was getting.  “I tried that already.”  He’d been under the impression that the entire point of Odin giving everyone phones was so they could avoid spending three days traipsing around an unfamiliar city trying to find someone, but either Duo was ignoring his or didn’t have it on him. 

            If he’d had any idea it would be this hard to track down the other man, he might not have bothered; but at this point, he was too damn frustrated to back down. 

            The woman pursed her lips in a sympathetic way that sent his thoughts skittering in spite of himself, and he clenched his jaw for a moment in irritation; she was _entirely_ too distracting.  “Who did you talk to?” she asked curiously. 

            “His _phone_.”  

            She frowned at him like he was trying to play a trick on her.  “Kasey doesn’t have a phone.” 

            Fine, maybe it was time to name drop; it wasn’t like he was getting anywhere on the subtler route.  “He said to give me his number when we talked on Odin’s phone a few weeks ago.”  He raised a brow.  “He should have gotten one around the same time I did.” 

            Her perfect mouth opened in a little ‘o’ of surprise.  “Oh, Amos takes it, to talk to Marlé.  He won’t have it right now.”  She smiled apologetically – and far more genuinely than earlier – as she offered a hand.  “Sorry.  I am Karina von Koll.” 

            _Von Koll.  Great._   Of _course_ Duo had managed to marry a woman that made it hard to keep his eyes inside his own head.  Hopefully he could keep himself in check enough to not let this get awkward.  And eventually he’d just get used to her. 

            _Hopefully._   He might just have to bank on them forgiving him if he made an ass of himself .  He’d thought perfectly petite little blondes like her were Hollywood magic – not real and married to your friends.  Cathy was going to scoff at him for exaggerating if she ever got done cooing over him _noticing_ someone in the first place, but he might get some vengeance when she realized he wasn’t full of shit and started howling about the unfairness of it. 

            _Small mercies._   He needed to get through this meeting without swallowing his tongue first. 

            He took her hand.  “Adam Bloom.  Do you know where he is?” 

            “Eh… no?  He…”  Her eyes flicked up in concentration and she started to mutter in a mix of both English and Dutch.  “What the word?  _No, that’s…  Fucking_ grammar _, how do you-_ ” 

            _“Not your first language?”_ he offered in Dutch, unable to resist a smile. 

            She laughed delightedly, her eyes lighting up, and it took his breath away even as irritation buzzed through him again and he tried to wave the feeling away.  _Stop that._   _“Hell no!  Oh, but I’m so glad not all his old friends insist on English!”_   She screwed her face up in annoyance.  _“Still, it’s complicated.  He was supposed to be back by now.”_  

            The door behind him chimed as someone opened it, and he turned to find a woman with long, curly brown hair and blue eyes come in, carrying a small child on one hip.  She smiled at him, but held the door open behind her to call after someone.  _“Stop dragging your feet; get back inside.”_   Facing him again, she smiled.  “Good morning.”  The baby started squirming as soon as she saw Karina, but the brunette just hitched her higher on one hip as she let the door fall shut and moved to the counter.  “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked in English.  “I’m going to need a cup before I can get anything useful done.” 

            Karina tsked at the other woman and made a reaching gesture, which made the brunette roll her eyes, but stood the baby up on the counter and held out her hands for Karina to take before she moved for the tiny kitchen in the corner. 

            _“Good morning, baby girl!”_ Karina cooed, still in Dutch.  She waited until the child made a happy noise back and started to topple into her before scooping her up and focusing on the newcomer.  _“Have you heard anything else?”_  

            _“Not yet,”_ the other woman returned in a grim tone before smiling over at Adam again and holding up a mug questioningly.  It looked like this was going to take a while, so he flashed her a quick smile and nod before looking at how possessively the blonde little girl was latching onto Karina, jamming the end of the woman’s ponytail in her mouth. 

            Their hair almost exactly the same shade of blonde. 

            That… was her baby, wasn’t it? 

            “So,” the other woman continued cheerfully as she turned away from the coffee machine.  “Welcome to New Renew – sorry we’re running a little bit behind schedule today, but what can I do for you?” 

            _Shouldn’t Hilde have said something about Duo having a baby?_  She’d mentioned his wedding and that his wife was cool, but nothing about a baby… though it still seemed pretty young?  He could see Odin not giving much thought to a pretty wife based on what he remembered about Heero, but skipping over the guy having a _kid_? 

            “’Liss, this is one of Kay’s old friends,” Karina explained eagerly.  “Through Odin.”  She bit her lip, glancing at him briefly before adding, “Maybe he can help.” 

            “Oh?”  Her smile stayed warm, but more than a little steel entered her eyes, and something in her stance shifted in a way that he couldn’t explain but set his hair standing on end.  “Do tell.”  Her smile widened, but it was almost a parody of Duo’s when he’d just killed something, and _not_ inviting.  “I don’t know your face.” 

            He eyed her for a moment, trying to decide exactly _why_ she was making his skin crawl.  “It’s been a while.”  Pushing aside his instinct for the moment, he held out his hand.  He’d already come this far, after all.  “Adam Bloom.” 

            “Mm.”  She ignored his hand and studied his face, and he had the alarming idea that she might be able to describe him precisely enough for a sketch artist later.  “Kasey’s not here.  Have you seen anyone recently that I’d trust who could vouch for you?” 

            He quickly ran through possible options, and resisted the urge to grimace.  “Hilde.” 

            She considered that for a moment before nodding.  “Call her.” 

            “She’s… not very happy with me right now,” he stalled.  Well, she probably wasn’t.  She hadn’t tried texting him yet, and that seemed out of character. 

            Her shoulders shifted as her eyes slid partway closed in an almost lazy way that set off yet more alarm bells in his hindbrain.  “Mm, I don’t care,” she decided after a moment.  “Does Odin know enough about you that he could clear you over the phone?” 

            “Yes.”  Odin likely knew far more about him than _he_ did; Adam hadn’t even known he _spoke Dutch_ until he’d entered the Netherlands two days ago. 

            She eyed him for another long moment before nodding again.  “It’ll do.”  She gestured at him.  “Call him.  Speakerphone.” 

            _“He said he’s been messaging, but no one answered,”_ Karina pointed out in an almost sullen tone… standing with the baby at the top of the stairs.  He hadn’t heard her slip away. 

            _“I don’t have proof of that, and you just let a **stranger** know we’re vulnerable enough to consider outside help,”_ the other woman grit out.  _“You should’ve taken Renee out the garage and caught up to Nolan instead of trapping yourself up there.”_  

            _“You’re being paranoid!”_

            _“He’s **missing** , Rina!  I don’t know enough of what he was planning to track him and he’s missed his deadline by almost **two days**!  That’s not like him!”  _

            _“_ ** _Cześć_** _,_ _”_ Odin muttered through the phone line.  _“Adam?”_  

            “Odin, it’s Melissa,” the more hostile of the two woman called across the counter.  “I need you to tell me if this guy is safe.” 

            There was only the briefest hesitation before, _“Where’s your husband?”_  

            “Kinda part of the problem,” she informed him tersely, never taking her eyes off Adam. 

            The man let out a sound that was either an upset sort of grunt or a curse in a language Adam didn’t recognize.  _“Ah…  How does Cathy make coffee?”_  

            _Fuck, I used to **live** with this guy?_   Maybe he should have known that, but his sister didn’t like to talk about before the amnesia, and it wasn’t like they’d had much time to catch up on _Peacemillion_.  Still, the idea was daunting.  “‘Black as night and sweet as sin,’” he recited, going so far as to faintly mimic her drawl. 

            “Too generic,” Melissa negated, eyes still locked on him… though he couldn’t see one of her hands, he realized.  Not a good sign. 

            _“I’m not done,”_ Odin groused impatiently.  _“Where was the last place you saw Hilde?”_  

            _How does he know that?_   “Ieper.” 

            “ _Who did you save Xu from?”_  

            _Last year?_   “Treize.” 

            _“More specific, please.”_  

            _Specific?_   Well, Xu had said something about Heero tracking them too, so maybe he knew enough detail…  What had been the guy’s name?  “Ivan?” 

            _“Is that a question?”_   He sounded _amused_ , the dick. 

            “I know where he lives, not his last name!” Adam protested, mostly sure he’d gotten it right.  Names were stupid; they could mean anything, and that was even before you got into duplicates. 

            _“I don’t, though.”_   He hummed.  _“A moment, ‘Liss, I’m thinking.”_  

            “Why not something from _before_?” she demanded pointedly. 

            _“We… blew him up at one point,”_ Odin admitted. 

            Adam closed his eyes as Melissa narrowed hers, tone turning flat.  “What.” 

            _“I don’t want to ask something I’m not sure he remembers, if you’re about to shoot him,”_ the other man protested. 

            “How do you know about the last time Hilde saw me?” he cut in. 

            _“I was with her CO when she called it in,”_ he explained.  _“Leaving her without an exit when you’re the one who got her there was a dick move.”_  

            “She was fine!” 

            _“Doesn’t make it not a dick move.”_  

            “ _You’re_ a dick!” he argued, temper flaring.  “She wanted to try and disarm it – she’s fucking crazy!” 

            _“Well, that’s new.”_   He sounded amused again. 

            “What?” he demanded. 

            _“Don’t worry about it.”_  

            “I barely remember being Trowa,” he snarled.  “Most of the time I don’t care, but _explosions_?  Fuck that!  I’m not doing that again, that…”  He floundered for a way to explain, and a phrase came to mind; maybe a memory, but probably something he’d just thought before.  “Death hurts like hell, and I’m not doing it again!” 

            Startled but deep, genuine laughter bubbled through the phone line as if he’d said something hilarious.   Adam scowled, trying to figure it out as Melissa eyed him questioningly, apparently just as lost.  He rolled his eyes, and she smirked seemingly in spite of herself, rolling her own and relaxing slightly, if only by a hair.  “Odin?” she asked skeptically once he got himself under control. 

            _“It’s him,”_ he reassured her, laughter still lighting up his voice.  _“You can trust him, and I’ll be there soon; I found a direct flight.  Is there a reason Duo left his phone at your house?  I could have tracked him through that.”_  

            Melissa relaxed the rest of the way, and Karina started back down the stairs behind them.  “It’s too flashy,” she explained tiredly. 

            Odin tsked.  _“You should have said something.  Get the one from the house or stay with Adam.  I’ll be there inside three hours.”_   The line disconnected. 

            Melissa closed her eyes and raked a hand through her hair, slouching, before shooting him an apologetic look.  “Sorry.  But you all…  I know exactly how capable Duo is, and if I have to face someone on his level, I need to get the drop on you first.”  Coming back up to her full height, she held out her own hand this time.  “Melissa von Koll.” 

            Adam blinked, glancing back over his shoulder at Karina.  “Von Koll?”  And Odin had asked her where her _husband_ was. 

            He… had been mostly sure that wasn’t legal. 

            The brunette smirked at him.  “Melissa Maxwell, if you must.  You’ve already met Rina; the little one is Renee.” 

            They were both wearing what could pass for wedding rings – Karina’s a diamond, and Melissa’s a series of amethysts.  “Ah.”  He focused on the baby again, who was fussing with her mother’s necklace now.  “Hilde didn’t mention her.” 

            “Hilde only stayed about an hour, the last time she came by,” Melissa explained dismissively.  “I’m not sure she even remembered that Rina had been pregnant.” 

            “I was at work when she came through,” the blonde added wistfully.  “I didn’t get to see her at all.” 

            _Well… okay then._   Maybe it was best to just not ask.  “When was the last time anyone saw Duo?”  He’d come here for advice, but he could swing a rescue if something had gone sideways. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “…Relena?”  The speaker sounded distinctly confused. 

            Addie smiled as she resettled the lid on the crock pot, raising a brow at the man in her kitchen.  A captain, by his uniform… but she didn’t recognize him.  “Afraid not.  Can I help you?” 

            He relaxed a little.  “Sorry, I just…”  He shook his head as if to clear it.  “Sorry.  Do you know where Jake is?”  

            “You’re hardly the first, and you won’t be the last,” Addie dismissed, brushing off her hands on her apron.  Her resemblance to the princess might have been considered remarkable, were it not for Daniella; enough to be noticed, but not to actually mistake her once you saw her face on.  “And no, not at the moment.  Who let you in?”  The boys all took security very seriously, and the kitchen was a ways into the house, let alone the compound – but it was against protocol for strangers to ever be left unattended on the grounds.  Either something had gone very wrong and she needed to act like nothing was amiss until she could get away from him and sound the alarm, or she had missed an introduction. 

            “I ran into Sasha on his way back in,” he explained.  “He said to just wait in the entry while he ran something up to John before he passed out, but I think he got distracted.  Or fell asleep.”  He rolled his eyes.  “He doesn’t normally stay up this late, or at least he didn’t use to.”  Shrugging, he added.  “I started looking around, and I could hear someone in here.” 

            _Mm… plausible, at least._   “What’s John short for?” 

            He blinked.  “Giovanni.”  He frowned, then let out a long breath.  “Oh.”  Moving slowly, he held his hands up and slightly away from his body.  “Sorry…  Where do you want me until you get someone down here?” 

            She smiled apologetically.  He’d answered right, but still – she didn’t know him.  “Over there is fine.  Bag on the floor, please, if you would.” 

            He nodded amicably, using the thumb of one hand, other fingers still carefully spread, to pull his messenger bag off his shoulder.  “Fair enough.  I’m not supposed to let it out of my sight, though.” 

            “That should be okay,” she decided, reaching into her pocket for her phone without looking away from him.  “I’d appreciate it if you could toss it a couple feet ahead of you.” 

            “Can do.  Sorry about all this.” 

            “If you’re telling the truth, it was Sergeant Sorrenti who dropped the ball,” she pointed out.  “And then Hayden, for not catching it afterwards.”  Holding her phone close to eye level and away from her, she snapped a picture of him and hit the button for a lower level alarm on her home screen.  “Thanks for being so considerate, though.  Your name, Captain?” 

            “I should’ve known better,” he argued.  “Cassidy Foreman.” 

            She recognized that as familiar, but couldn’t remember the context.  “I’m Addie Fonne.  You haven’t been here before, have you?” 

            He shook his head.  “The last time I saw everyone, they were still renovating the place.”  He looked around the very purple kitchen.  “It’s nice; big step up from Brussels.” 

            “He’s clear!” Lin called out as he clattered down the pantry stairs.  “Not sure how he got in, but he’s one of ours.” 

            “I’m guessing Dave was lying when he said you were expecting me today?” Cassidy called back in a dry tone. 

            “Let’s be nice and pretend he’s forgetful instead of trying to pull Jake’s tail,” Lin returned, tumbling out the door with a grin and practically throwing himself at the other man.  “Man, it’s good to see you!  How’s being a badass been?” 

            Cassidy snorted as he returned the hug.  “Exhausting.  It feels like it’s been years, not six months.  It’s shit that needs doing, but once I realized Jake was serious about wanting me to come back, there was no way I was turning him down.  I like Dave, but I _missed_ you guys.” 

            “That’s because we’re _awesome_ , and Dave’s a creep,” Lin returned happily as he pulled away.  “You’re here to stay, then?” 

            “That was the idea,” the other man agreed.  He hesitated.  “Though, if the colonels still aren’t talking-” 

            Lin waved a hand dismissively.  “He wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t mean it; worst case scenario, he just doesn’t know you accepted.  And knowing them, Dave probably just didn’t give him a timeframe.”  He grinned raucously.  “Or Jake just got too distracted courting Lena to bother telling us.” 

            Cassidy barked out a laugh that was pure joy.  “ _Finally_!  Thank _God_!” 

            “Right?”  He looked around and spotted the bag, still partway between them and Addie, and reached for it.  “Where’s the rest of your stuff?” 

            The captain hissed and _dove_ for his satchel before Lin could take more than a single step, sweeping it up and back onto his shoulder in one smooth motion as Addie skittered around the other side of the island, heart racing.  “Hayden!” she screeched. 

            The pantry door – and presumably most others throughout the house – slammed shut with a distinct _thunk_. 

            Cassidy was blushing deeply as he stood upright again and brought his hands back up.  “Shit, I swear, I’m the goddamn _king_ of bad impressions today!  I’m sorry.” 

            “Kinda weird, friend, not gonna lie,” Lin pointed out, crossing his arms in an annoyed way… but also in a clearly not aggressive stance. 

            The captain closed his eyes.  “You know how Dave does that thing where he says something ridiculous and you can’t tell if he’s fucking with you or dead serious?” 

            Marsden ducked into the room in a low crouch at an angle that would keep him in a blind spot from most of the kitchen, gun out, brown eyes hard.  In a moment, he was under the breakfast bar beside her, signing to ask for injuries, so she shook her head, clutching at the counter to try to stop her shaking.  He tugged at her skirt in a not so subtle request for her to get _down_ , but Lin was only exasperated… and Captain Foreman looked as though he’d like nothing more than to crawl under the stove and die. 

            The fact that he was standing with his back to Lin, legs apart and hands held high, eyes shut and red as a tomato?  She was starting to feel embarrassed for freaking out.  Not enough to tell him to put down his hands, but enough that ducking for cover would probably make her feel like a horrible person. 

            “Yeah?” 

            Mars tugged at her skirt again – harder this time like he thought maybe she hadn’t felt him before – and she kicked at him.  Not enough to hurt if it connected; just to make it clear she was refusing. 

            Cassidy still hadn’t opened his eyes.  “He told me if I let anyone touch this before Jake, I’d be court marshaled.” 

            “You’re kidding me.” 

            “No, I’m totally fucking serious!  I’ve got this massive packet of files stamped with ‘Eyes Only’ in here that he made me box and wrap up like it was a birthday present while he watched, and he said if I lost sight of this bag or let anyone else touch it, a court martial would be the least of my worries!  I have no idea if he’s just pranking me, but with some of the shit I’ve seen over the past six months?  Nobody touches the damn bag before Jake.” 

            “…Foreman?” Mars called tentatively from under the counter. 

            “Yeah?” 

            The lieutenant huffed out a sigh as he stood, considering the other man for a moment before holstering his weapon.  “Apologize.” 

            Addie blushed so hot her face went numb.  “He did!  He already did, I just…”. She grimaced and offered the captain a weak smile.  “ _I’m_ sorry.” 

            He shook his head.  “No need for that.” 

            “I overreacted,” she protested, feeling even worse.  _Hayden probably locked down the **entire house**._   _Everyone_ was going to know she flipped out. 

            “Actually,” Lin announced, stepping around Cassidy and swatting at one of his arms so he’d put it down, “You gave him a lot more leeway than you should have.” 

            “He’s your _friend_ ,” she argued, starting to shake.  Damn, but she hated adrenaline. 

            “He also would’ve gotten over you giving him a vacant sort of greeting before you walked out the door and put the base on lockdown.”  He reached out and grabbed her hands, holding them in his for a long moment while she fought to get her tremors under control.  Then, glancing back at the heavy door over the pantry, he grinned conspiratorially.  “Actually, he’s still going to have to get over that last.” 

            “Already over it,” Cassidy dismissed, slumping against the counter in a tired way.  “Done and done.” 

            “The next time someone comes in that you don’t know, follow the protocol more strictly,” Marsden admonished in his molasses drawl, folding his arms on the bar and leaning on them.  “A false alarm means we have a chance to drill.  Statistically speaking, someone who means harm will eventually break in, and a fast response is worth _weekly_ false alarms.”  He whistled sharply to make sure Hayden was paying attention to their room in particular – though Addie couldn’t imagine he might be doing anything else – before loudly pointing out, “You _are_ listening, aren’t you?” 

            There was an almost grudging hesitation before the blast doors slid back to… wherever they had come from.  Because that had _not_ been the pantry door – though the normal one was shut now too. 

            Lin grinned again, looking the same way she had.  “I almost don’t want to ask if that was a Jake addition or part of the original design.” 

            Addie choked out a laugh.  “With this house?”  It really could be either. 

            Closing her eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath, she struggled to re-center herself.  She appreciated that Lincoln was willing to cater to her, but it was Marsden’s words that made her actually feel better, let her resettle her mind and stop being embarrassed  _No harm, no foul._   No amount of study or training could replace real experience, right?. 

            Stepping around Lin, she offered the newcomer a genuine smile.  “It’s nice to meet you, Cassidy.  Sorry about all the hullabaloo.” 

            His returning smile was a touch chagrined, but happy enough.  “Don’t worry about it; I kinda had it coming.  I _know_ better, but I got into bad habits with Mitchell.” 

            “Whoo, reality check,” Lin agreed in a deadpan, starting back for the pantry door before stopping with a frown as something occurred to him. 

            Cassidy frowned too.  “What?”  When Lin jerked his chin in the direction of Hayden’s office, the blonde turned to look… and the lieutenant slapped the shoulder strap of the messenger bag. 

            Captain Foreman took a swipe at him without turning back, and Lin cackled as he dodged and darted for the pantry.  Throwing the door open, he stopped and grinned broadly when he found Jake standing there with a tablet in hand.  “Colonel.” 

            Jake smirked and gestured for him to wait before moving into the kitchen and focusing on Addie, passing the screen over; it showed a live feed of the kitchen.  “Are you in the middle of anything?” 

            “Nothing with time constraints.”  She had only come in to stir what she had simmering for the evening meal, and that was done with.  There were a handful of chores she had left for the afternoon, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t move around.  Dorothy was God only knew where with her baby again, but had promised to have him back to her by six, so she had time. 

            She was probably designing some sort of fancy to do over him turning two this weekend.  Personally, she didn’t see the point of a party – he was far too young to remember, and she had just planned for her and Danny to take the evening off to focus on his favorite foods and games – but there wasn’t any harm in it either.  If it made the aristocrat happy, that was just fine.  Dorothy was a good friend, and periodically a downright godsend.  So few people in her life had ever actually _listened_ when she told them something, and the younger woman was always genuine with her, if erratic.  In any case, Willam adored her, and it had taken very little time for her to become quite proficient at looking after him.  After Daniella, Dorothy was her second choice for a babysitter, now. 

            “Relena wants everyone to come upstairs in half an hour,” Jake explained.  “We’ve got some big stuff to go over.  The night shift needs to be woken up and if anyone’s out in town, we need them called back.  If they can’t wrap something that quickly, let me know before we poke at John and Sasha, in case we have to delay.” 

            “But wake up Rome either way?” she clarified. 

            He nodded.  “He should know what this is about already, but he won’t want to miss it; he can have tonight off if he needs it.”  Then he grimaced.  “And find something for Krititz to keep busy with, preferably on the grounds instead of the house.  He’s not part of this.” 

            Well, she hadn’t been looking forward to dealing with the chickens, and he could handle the weekly maintenance on her vegetable patch, she supposed.  “You’re never going to get anywhere with him if you keep ostracizing him,” she warned. 

            “I’m really hoping my late birthday present from Dave includes his transfer papers, actually,” he muttered in a distracted way as he turned back to Cassidy.  “I’m ready to wash my hands of him.”  He held out one hand.  “Gimmie.”  Looking relieved, Cassidy did just that, though he frowned when he didn’t shoulder it… then groaned when Jake reached the door and pointedly handed it to Lincoln.  Grinning a little, he asked, “Did you want to come with me and see Lena before everyone else comes in, or follow Addie and get the lay of the land?” 

            Cassidy frowned, beginning to look suspicious.  “Is there a reason I should see her while she’s getting ready for something?” 

            Her old friend tipped his head to one side, evidently needing to mull that over for a moment.  “I suppose that depends on your opinion of Zechs.” 

            Cassidy narrowed his eyes.  “Why?” 

            Jake rolled his eyes.  “Hence the meeting.” 

            “No, that’s my opinion, _why_ ,” the other man argued, voice dropping and a sneer dropping across his face.  “What’s the _point_ of the grandstanding?  Everyone’s just too afraid of how he might retaliate to do something about him.”  Scowling, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter.  “If I thought it would’ve helped a single damn thing, I would have resigned after the Fall, but fighting against him directly would only be one more way to lose.  I just made sure to stay under commanders who I knew would do the right thing for the fucking _future_ , not an agenda.” 

            _Ooh._   She liked this one.  First impressions aside, he was forward, blunt, and dictated his life by conviction; the type of person who didn’t take shit, and once he was your friend, it was for life.  _No wonder Jake picked him._   All of the people he surrounded himself with had those same qualities in one way or another… and it made her feel safer than she had since before her parents died. 

            “Yeah, go with Addie, we’re still on the same page,” Jake dismissed warmly, his eyes smug.  “Pick out a room, too; she can tell you which ones aren’t occupied.”  He made a face at his uniform.  “I’d forgotten Dave promoted you; it’s a good thing I already got Lin’s advancement approved, or you’d outrank him.” 

            “Wait, really?” Lin looked startled. 

            “You’re not delusional enough to think you handle the same workload as the other lieutenants,” Jake pointed out in a wry tone as he headed towards the stairs.  “And I’ve seen you boss Captain Derusha around.” 

            The darker-haired man snorted as he moved to follow.  “I just figured I was your favorite.  And Illian technically isn’t in my chain of command; my scope is always going to overrule his and he knows it.” 

            “Illian is one of those rare individuals who never loses his sense of scale,” Jake agreed.  “The complete lack of aggression that kept him out of the infantry makes him ideal in defense.  And you _are_ my favorite.  Mai doesn’t have a finger in even half the pies you control.” 

            “You didn’t get any say in her rank; she came ready-made out of the reserves like that.” 

            “She’s also ill-suited to long-term command – she’s too much of an agent to sit at the top of the food chain, and she knows it.”  They were getting harder to hear now, reaching the second story.  “Hell, I’m almost positive she intentionally came within a hair’s breadth of a dishonorable discharge in 192 to avoid advancement.” 

            Addie shook her head and turned back to Cassidy with a smile.  “Well, it looks like you’re my duckling, for now,” she announced brightly.  “Let’s go check in with Hayden first.” 

-

***

-

**Frankfurt, Germany**

            _Oh crap._   This…  Might be her fault.  Technically, it was Duo’s and maybe Amos’s, but she could have been clearer…  Or maybe just not taken so long to finish _Amos’s_ phone, instead of going crazy with it then getting distracted with all the stuff with Quatre.  She’d assumed Amos was stealing Duo’s phone to message her then giving it back, not just _keeping_ it, or she’d have made him hand it over to Odin’s old friend and walked him through disabling the fancier security she’d added on _because_ her brother said he was worried about someone else getting their hands on it. 

            Damn, but she wished Odin had told her what was going on five minutes _before_ he had to turn his phone off for a handful of hours.  Or that he’d, like, taken the time to crack the phone himself instead of assuming Duo had just gone off the chart like Melissa said.  But he _had_ had a flight to catch…  Even if it was to the wrong city, come to find out. 

            _Crap, this is **totally** my fault.  _

            Marie opened her mail app and set the phone to dictate before flipping back through flight schedules.  “To Adam: So, this is embarrassing, and it’s a long story, but the phone’s in lockdown.  Like, the ‘don’t notice me, I’m normal’ kind that has to be broken manually, and Kay doesn’t know that no one’s been able to see him.” 

            It had seemed so _clever_ before.  She squeezed her eyes shut and glowered at the flight schedules that didn’t match what she needed… and decided to try something else she’d seen Odin do but never tried without him.  “I can’t open it up from here, but I’m forwarding everything from the past week to you to make sure we don’t miss any backlog, and the number for the burner he’s been using.” 

            That… would be surprisingly easy, actually.  And convenient.  And perfect.  Now she just had to make it work. 

            “The short version, though, is that he’s in Rotterdam, and everything’s gravy, but he’s trying to get some other people to go there too, so… yeah.  Odin’s still on his way to you guys, and if you really think you need to ditch him he’ll get your messages once he lands, but look everything over first.”  She bit her lip, looking everything over… 

            _Yeah.  Yeah I can totally do this._  

            “Let me know if you need anything.  I might be out of touch for a bit, but I’ll respond as fast as I can.  Sign: Sorry, Audi.”  Ending the dictation, she quickly attached the promised files – which she was willing to admit were a bit of a mess at the moment, but time might be important – and looked back at the schedule.  It was even one of the higher end jets, so she’d be there in under an hour.  She could read the text log herself on the way and if he _did_ need help sooner, she’d be ready to roll. 

            “Hey, Skye?” she called, thinking a moment before digging for one of the holsters she’d gotten after running around with Hilde and Lucrezia those couple weeks – she always wore a holster under her jeans around her hips, but she finally had big enough boobs hide a little back-up Ruger without printing.  It was, like, the only thing getting her period was any good for, she’d decided. 

            She still hadn’t ever had to shoot anyone yet, but, well… she was starting to do crazier stuff.  And Odin had said she was good enough to be classed as a sharp shooter; she drilled every other day on speed.  She knew the kill shots too – Odin had taught her those first – but if she had the option?  She wasn’t going to kill somebody.  Everyone said that was important, and Odin _hated_ how many people he had killed, and… she really didn’t want to have to think about that until she had to. 

            Even her mom had never tried to tell her it was something she’d _never_ have to think about, just… to put it off as long as she could. 

            “Yeah?”  He was staying in the other room, it sounded like, so she tugged her shirt over her head and pulled on the form-fitting tank top with a half open front that was part of the ensemble, then made a face as she realized that to tuck it in, she was going to have to undo her pants and get it under her other holster.  _Crap._   She hadn’t tried wearing them both at once before, but the boob one was too irritating to pull out to be a decent primary.  All the same, she set about hooking the holster through her bra and checked the chamber and magazine on her smallest gun before settling it in place under the compression tank. 

            Picking her shirt back up, she asked, “Have you ever snuck into a cargo hold?” 

            “Uh… that’s a no.”  He came around the corner.  “Why-  Damn it!”  He closed his eyes.  “You could’ve said something!” 

            “I’m, like, three times as covered as when I put on a swimsuit,” Marie pointed out, rolling her eyes as she resettled her t-shirt and looked down, checking to make sure it was loose enough that nothing showed.  _Cool._   “Turn around if you’re gonna be a prude, though,” she offered as she unbuttoned her jeans and started on the hooks for her other holster.  “I’ve done it before, but with my brother, and not military.  You ever sneak in anywhere?”  She blinked.  “Literally, I mean.”  The past few days had proven just how much she _didn’t_ know yet about corporate espionage, and just how useful social engineering was.  Odin had never bothered with more than the basics. 

            “If I say no, are you going to run off without me?” he asked in a resigned tone, facing away from her. 

            “Hadn’t decided yet,” she admitted, setting the belt down on the table with a _thunk_ and shimmying her pants down a little further so she could pull the tunic length fabric of the tank over her underwear – it was made of that stretchy athletic stuff that was so popular, and hopefully it wouldn’t get too hot, or bind with the hip belt.  The only way to find out was to try, though.  “It should be pretty low security, and I can mess with their cameras so we’re invisible – it’d just be the people we’d need to avoid, and it looks pretty skeleton crew.” 

            “That doesn’t sound too bad,” Skye declared, crossing his arms.  “Though I feel like I need to ask why.” 

            “I need to get to Rotterdam fast; I messed something up for a friend, so I need to make sure I cover any of the fallout.  The next commercial flight won’t head out for another four hours.”  And they _were_ done here; all the paperwork was set up both for the local agencies and the hostel Cat was buying in Skye’s name for his fledgling network – otherwise she really would have just walked without letting him know what she was up to. 

            “Where’s your brother?” 

            “On his way to the wrong city.”  She scrunched up her nose.  “And he was back with Cat when he heard anyway, so he had a lot further to go – we’re closer.” 

            “Are you expecting trouble?” 

            “Mm.”  She picked her belt back up and slung it back around her hips.  “Not really.  I probably don’t need to go, but it’s my fault he doesn’t have the back-up he wanted, like, four hours ago.  He said he doesn’t _need_ it, it’s just stacking the deck, but if I _can_ make it, I really should – until the rest of the cavalry makes it from Amsterdam, at least.”  She took a moment to check the chamber and extra clips for her Daewoo, that her knives were situated right, before zipping her pants back up.  “I’m good on my own if you’re not sure about it,” she pointed out as she buttoned and squirmed to make sure everything sat the way it should, twisting to check how she looked from the back before letting her shirt fall over her waistband.  “You can turn around now.” 

            _LED gem bracelet, grounding bracelets, cable anklets, extra universal chip still tucked in left boot zipper, sticky bugs in wallet…_   If she was carrying the Ruger, she should strap the extra clip into her right boot next to her wax pencil… she hadn’t needed to jot quick notes for anything she did yet, but Odin had insisted, and it was just something she felt half naked without, now.  Her stun baton – still her absolute _favorite_ weapon – was tucked into the sleeve of her jacket as usual, and her little circuit fryers were in the pocket of the same.  She yanked the gun bag out of the rest of her duffel for the extra clip and braced her foot on a chair so she could settle it… but she was pretty sure she’d covered all her bases. 

            “I’ll tag along,” Skye decided, moving to gather his own stuff.  “Might as well.  I don’t want to get in your business, so you can ditch me once we get there, but this way I’m nearby if you decide you need a hand.” 

            That made sense.  “Be ready in five, then,” she ordered, starting to scan the room for anything that might have fallen out of a bag.  They hadn’t really been here long enough to unpack. 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Foreman!” Jerome called out as he came into Relena’s solar.  “Damn, but it’s good to see you!” 

            The younger man gave him a tired but happy smile as he moved over to clasp hands with him and be pulled into a hug.  “Back at you, Rome.” 

            Rome smirked.  “Was it all you hoped and dreamed?” 

            Cassidy groaned.  “You don’t have to rub it in, you know.” 

            He frowned.  “I was just teasing.”  But if he was acting like that, either everyone else had been pushing it, or it had been _bad_.  He’d still been excited to act as Mitchell’s second, the last time he’d seen him.  “Are you okay?” 

            His face just… the shutters closed, everything going blank.  “I’m fine.” 

            _Fuck._   “Yeah, do me a favor and cut the bullshit.”  Glancing around, he decided they still had maybe five or ten minutes before everything got started.  “Come on.”  He tugged the kid after him into the bathroom and down the steps into the Princess’s suite.  “This is one of the areas where surveillance only comes on if the next apocalypse starts,” he explained at Cassidy’s bewildered look, shooing him over to Jake’s couch and pulling the shoji closed incase anyone else wandered down.  “And I know you like your privacy, Kansas, but something’s eating you up inside, so out with it.” 

            The kid had an ability to bottle shit up second only to the colonel, and Rome had seen enough of his type that he’d known it the day he met him, before Relena’s first tour.  He’d been handling the Fall a lot better than a lot of the other Americans who stayed in the military after the Regime takeover, but that hadn’t meant he was _okay_.  For the months that he’d served as senior day shift officer under Jake, before ceding the position to Lincoln and taking command of the nights, he’d made it a point to pull Cassidy out of his shell often enough that he got to vent his spleen, if nothing else… and he’d been the one who thought the kid might start to doubt himself a little less in a harder-hitting post. 

            It looked like he might have a reason to regret that, now.  All the same, he ignored his stomach trying to turn itself inside out with long practice and watched Foreman expectantly, giving him a familiar anchor to latch onto.  He’d deal with his own guilt later – for now, he needed to make sure nothing got a chance to fester. 

            Cassidy groaned.  “It’s… complicated, Rome.” 

            “Don’t care,” he pointed out easily, falling into their old rhythm.  “Come on.”  When the other didn’t immediately respond, he kept it up.  “You see something you couldn’t handle?” 

            He huffed out an exasperated sigh.  “No.  I mean, there’s some really awful shit out there, but I was mostly ready for that, I’m not a moron.”  He shook his head.  “I actually met a lot of really great people too, like Jovi and Razo.  You’d like them if we could get them cleared to visit some-” 

            “We’ll look into it,” he cut off, not letting him get distracted.  The other man’s mouth twitched in annoyance before he could catch himself, so the tangent had been intentional, but really, Cassidy knew better than that.  “Just not your speed?”  It was a dumb thing to get hung up about, but some people did, and inevitably, someone else would make fun of you for it. 

            “A little?  I didn’t really _like_ it, but, I mean, I figured I could keep it up for a year or two, that’s not…”  He stopped and glowered at him. 

            “So?”  Rome raised a brow, entirely unrepentant.  Decompressing was an important aspect of anyone’s life, but critical in their line of work.  “What burned you out?” 

            “I’m _not_ burned out, okay?” Cassidy half snarled.  “I’m just…  I’m not sure how much more I can take of that shit and Jake offered so I’m here, but I wasn’t ready to request a transfer yet, so cool off!”  He brought his hands up to cover his face, breathing hard.  “I… fuck, it’s just…  I found out what happened to one of my cousins, and it hurts, okay?  I’m handling it, and I’m proud of him because they say he died trying to find more people who just wanted _out_ and that he never fell under that sadistic siren song Cambyses spun out, but he still died a good eight months before we got there and…”  He dropped down onto the couch.  “Christ.  You know, I thought closure would help, but I’ve still got maybe five more relatives that might’ve made it out of the States, and I’m not sure I can handle finding another one.  Not like that, at least, not… not for another year or two, maybe, I don’t know.” 

            Jerome slowly moved around the coffee table to sit down on Foreman’s far side and rested a hand on his shoulder.  That… that was rough.  “When did you find out?” he asked quietly. 

            Cassidy was hunched over, elbows on his knees.  “Right at the start.  The first group we met and made an alliance with, that Razo and Jovi came from?  The guy who pulled them all together, Robby, he had a list of names, and Stefan was on it.  Nobody knew how he wound up there, but… he and Jovaughn and Nick were pretty close, I guess.  Razo says their leader took it a lot harder than he usually seemed to, but none of them really knew why, and now since he’s dead too, nobody ever will.”  He barked out a weak laugh, covering his eyes again.  “Just one more drop in the ocean after the Fall, but… yeah.”  He dropped his hands from dry eyes and turned to meet Jerome’s eyes, lips thin.  “Are we done?” 

            “Tch.”  Jerome pulled him into a fierce hug.  “I was worried, jackass.” 

            “You always worry,” Cassidy agreed tiredly, hugging him back.  “You look like you’ve been doing okay, though.”  He pulled away, standing up.  “How’s your mom?  Kelly?” 

            “Mom’s great; she’s putting together a Thanksgiving thing together here next month.”  He smirked.  “I’ve been listening to her dither over recipe variations for _months_ , it’s ridiculous.” 

            “Nice!” 

            “And Kelly’s not bad.”  Sighing, he stood back up and started collapsing the shoji screens.  “Not great, but not bad.  Relena’s talking about setting up an office nearby to handle the lower level bullshit that comes with being Minister of Foreign Affairs so we stop drowning in paperwork on off hours, and I’m trying to talk Kelly into leaving Reconstruction for it.  She’s risen about as high as she can there, and she’s basically Batman for organizational shit.”  He’d also feel a lot better if she was out of Brussels.  Relena’s political stance was shifting, and if she was looking to clash with Zechs sooner than later, he’d rather have his little sister somewhere that he could protect her.  She probably wouldn’t appreciate his need to play the hero, as she called it, but he knew she’d like to see him more often too, and he could play that angle if she tried to dig her heels in. 

            “Is she still seeing… Finley?  That chick over in Transportation?” 

            “Nah, that broke off a while back.”  He rolled his eyes.  “She says she’s swearing off women like it’s not the third time she’s done it.  But she gets lonely and I don’t think she’s really looked twice at a guy since college, no matter what she says.” 

            Cassidy shrugged, looking over Relena’s room critically before moving towards the windows.  “It’ll probably be easier to get her to move, though,” he pointed out. 

            “Maybe.”  He watched the captain knock on the space grade glass and nod to himself before fiddling with the locking latch and vents.  “Come on, I’ll bring you back through to poke at everything after the Princess finishes her speech.” 

            “Alright.”  Cassidy went about making sure he’d put everything back the way it was.  “Jake said you already knew what it was about?” 

            “We had some stuff go down when we were in space last month,” Jerome agreed vaguely.  “Priorities shifted.” 

            “Cool.”  He shook his head as they went back into the closet and up the stairs.  “This place is a trip.” 

            Jerome laughed.  “Man, you don’t even know the half of it yet.” 

            “Dave didn’t mention much about the grounds; mostly he just gave me warnings about Major Marakesh.” 

            “That’s because the woman requires a disclaimer,” Jerome noted wryly. 

            He snickered as they came back up into the bathroom.  “Alright.  I suppose what I really want to know, is did Jake and Lena finally snap and start making out like losers before or after this mysterious stuff went down in space?” 

            “Oh no, we’re just back to him doing her hair or her laying on the couch with her head in his lap while he leaves pretty things out for her to find.  Otherwise he’s been meticulously careful about not being alone with her while they’re both conscious.”  He rolled his eyes.  “It’s about as ass backwards as everything else in their little reverse love drama, but they’re happier and there’s startlingly little sexual tension, so I’m not complaining.”  _For now, at least._   If something didn’t get settled by Thanksgiving he would _bribe_ Marakesh into making it happen, dignity be damned. 

            For the most part, he respected the maturity and thought the young couple put to everything; he’d never had any compunctions about following either of them, despite being ten years Miller’s senior.  They were just _that_ good at what they did, and he was frankly glad he hadn’t been born in a position where he’d have to wade through half the crap they faced.  But there were also some points where he really wished they’d just act like teenagers.  He _hated_ how okay everyone seemed to think it was to just repress emotions they found inconvenient.  It did horrible things to you, and the social shunning the aristocracy promoted just compounded everything. 

            Cassidy groaned.  “I guess it was too much to hope I’d missed that whole stage.” 

            “You ought to know better,” Jerome agreed happily as they moved back into the solar, yawning.  “You’re not all waiting on us, are you?” he called half apologetically. 

            John tipped his head back so he could see them without moving from where he was comfortably slouched on a couch.  “I haven’t seen Dorothy yet,” he pointed out, yawning as well.  “How was the sand, Kansas?” 

            “Messy,” Cassidy returned tiredly, going to sit on the arm of the chair closest to the other man.  “I’m ready for a change of pace.” 

            John snorted.  “Get ready for paper cuts,” he warned. “We’ve been doing a whole lot less gallivanting about since you left and got shafted with politics instead.” 

            “That’s actually one of the issues we need to resolve today,” Relena added firmly.  “When I first received the office, I didn’t trust anything I inherited from Vincent Asbury-” 

            “For good reason!” Illian interjected. 

            “And because he was so talented at fulfilling only imperative directives,” Relena continued serenely, “I got away with it.”  She made a face.  “If only by the skin of my teeth and at considerable sacrifice from all my staff, so _thank-you_.”  She paused for their appreciative murmurs, then, “But frankly, we outgrew our staffing needs inside the first month.” 

            “Amen to that,” Olivia agreed tiredly, sprawled in an artfully casual way across another armchair. 

            “Not to be a downer, or anything,” Daniella offered tentatively.  “But, well…  If the household gets too many more people, we’ll start hitting a logistical wall with food and upkeep.  I mean, maybe not if Addie and I stopped doing clerical things and just focused there, but…”  She bit her lip. 

            “Well, breakfast isn’t so hard most days,” Sasha pointed out.  Usually, the three of them on nights handled morning food. 

            “Not _yet_ ,” Daniella pointed out.  “And you only said _most_ days.  On the average day without guests, we have fifteen people to feed three times a day, and that was before Dr Barton arrived, and…”  She trailed off again, looking uncertain. 

            “It’s a balancing act,” Addie continued for her, walking over to rest a hand on her sister’s shoulder.  “We’ve made it work so far, but even with everyone else taking meal rotations it’s come close to crashing down on our heads a few times.”  She smiled down at the younger girl before meeting eyes with Jake.  “I’ve been meaning to bring it up with you – even without adding anyone, it’s getting a little precarious.” 

            Cassidy, Jerome noticed, was now staring at the fifteen-year-old in bewildered disbelief.  Daniella was trying very hard to pretend she didn’t notice, but rude was rude, and Rome cuffed the boy in the back of the head as he moved past him to find a seat for himself.  He seemed to come back to himself at that and blushed, tipping his head back and staring up at the glass ceiling instead of anywhere in the room.  Ella tossed Jerome a bashfully thankful smile, and he waved it off. 

            Their little Relena clone tended to have that effect on people, and the poor thing still hadn’t figured out how to handle it. 

            Jake’s lips tightened, but he nodded in deference to the Fonnes’ assessment.  “Alright.  I’m not sure where to start with that, but I’ll start trying.” 

            “Actually…”  Mai announced leadingly from where she stood leaning against one of the large tables lining the far wall.  “I might have an answer to that.  I… happen to know a _fabulous_ caterer with a resume that will impress who has been thinking about moving to Germany?” 

            And, as usual, the major immediately commanded the attention of the room, though not for the typical reasons.  In fact, this was actually alarming, because Rome wasn’t sure he had _ever_ heard the woman sound _tentative_ before.  Her body language matched it too, which was… genuinely concerning. 

            Jake only gave her a curious look.  “Trustworthy?” 

            “Utterly,” was her immediate response, shoulders relaxing. 

            “Is this who I think it is?”  His lips were starting to twitch, like he was holding in a smile. 

            The major’s expression turned sheepishly happy.  “I’ve been looking for a good way to bring it up?  And really, the only thing holding her back was job concerns, so…”  She shrugged. 

            Jake grinned outright before turning back to Addie.  “So apparently we’re getting a five star chef and caterer of a world-renowned restaurant chain in a month or so.” 

            “Or maybe, like… a week?” 

            Jake started laughing, turning to incredulous eyes back to Mailin.  “When were you going to bring this up, exactly?” 

            “She doesn’t have tickets or anything!” the woman protested, though her grin was devious.  “She started packing before telling me she was even looking!” 

            “Well, I’m certainly not going to complain, so long as security concerns are met,” Relena decided with a smile before the colonel could continue heckling the other woman.  “Provided we have the budget for it, at least.” 

            Jake tried to give Mai one more warning look – which was entirely ruined by the grin he was failing to hide – before rolling his eyes and turning back to the princess.  “No problems there,” he assured her.  “It’s an issue I was aware of, though not how close we were getting to critical.” 

            Relena nodded before turning back to the rest of the room.  “To get back on topic…”  She waited until she was sure she had everyone’s attention before continuing.  “My next project is to put together a cabinet for the Foreign Affairs Office, and once that’s settled, we should be able to focus a little more again.”  She smirked at John.  “And you lot, at least, will be seeing less of the red tape drudgery.”  She focused her gaze on Jerome.  “I’ve already reached out to Kelly, among others, and have a tentative acceptance; we’ll be taking at least two of the clerks Minister Asbury employed now that our background checks are done, but we still need to find and ratify a location before we can move forward, which brings us back to security and other logistic concerns.”  Offering Mai a smile, she pointed out, “Having a caterer will help with at least a few of those, but there’s still a good deal of ground to cover before we’re open for business.  So don’t start celebrating just yet.” 

            “Are we… not waiting for Dorothy, then?” Vaughn asked curiously. 

            “She and Dr Barton are almost to the second floor,” Hayden called from his seat at a set of monitors against the wall. 

            “Dorothy is already aware of the politics,” Relena dismissed.  “She only needs to be here because I’d never hear the end of it if she missed it.  Does anyone else have any concerns they were looking for an opportunity to bring up?”  She side-eyed Mai for a long moment and smirked at the unrepentant grin she got in return. 

            After a moment of silence, Mars cleared his throat.  “Well, guess that’s my cue…  Once I got comfortable here, I started paying closer attention to the scouts we pulled from the Regime’s general pool, and I’ve found a few that I think we might want to keep.” 

            Jake perked up at that.  “Lefevre?” 

            “And a few others,” Mars agreed.  “But Emma’s definitely on the list.”  He bit his lip, eying Jake for another long moment before continuing with, “I don’t know the politics enough to know whether we’d want to invite them into Sarracenia, and Sergeant Duchamps, at least, won’t _want_ to move, but Yvette mentioned she was being offered a promotion last week and said she was willing to refuse it if there was a chance to become a permanent member of Relena’s retinue in the future.  I asked her to give me ‘til All Saint’s Day to sound it out.” 

            Jerome tried to match faces to the names, but his contact with the scouts was fairly minimal, since Relena usually settled in one location before the sun went down… and they had really only been using whoever was local with the requisite training since moving to Germany.  Having people of their own sounded like a good idea, though… especially with their new direction. 

            “Well, that leads rather well into what we need to discuss,” Relena decided as she turned to settle into her favorite armchair, curling her feet up under her. 

            “Once Dorothy and Leia get here,” Jake amended as he picked up a thick stack of manila envelopes from the desk near Hayden.  “Until then, I wanted to say I’m sorry I put off a few well-deserved promotions.”  He smirked.  “I kinda figured we had enough paperwork.”  There was a general chuckle in response to that as he started passing them out.  “They’re mostly just for the old guard.  Here, John; you’ve been acting as Rome’s lieutenant for a while now, so this is just a formality, and Sasha, you’re now Sergeant Major Sorrenti.”  He gave him a tolerantly amused look.  “Just remember to follow protocol from here on, huh?” 

            Sasha grimaced and nodded.  “Sorry.” 

            Jake shrugged.  “I know you wouldn’t have done it with someone you weren’t perfectly sure of, but still.  Not a big deal, but remember the lesson.”  Hayden practically bounced as he took his folder and flipped it open, eyes going wide.  “And sorry that it took me so long to get the details ironed out, but I wanted to be sure we moved this in the long-term direction you wanted,” Jake apologized.  “You’re an integral part of our command structure, but you’re not…”  Jake pursed his lips.  “You’re specialized.  We need you that way, and you’re _happy_ that way, so I’m not going to try to fold you into the typical spots anymore, Warrant Officer Polanski.” 

            After shaking hands with a surprisingly speechless – though still shaking from excitement or some other emotion – Hayden, Jake turned to Vaughn.  “You’re the only one of the new crew that’s seeing a promotion, but you also plan and coordinate our movements with a precision I never expected, and I want you to start working more closely with Mars, so: sergeant becomes sergeant major.”  He smiled as he handed one to Rome.  “Captain Moretti.”  The colonel’s lips twitched as he met Cassidy’s eyes.  “You already got promoted, so don’t make doe eyes at me.” 

            Cassidy just smirked.  “Those folders look an awful lot like the ones in your fake birthday present,” he pointed out instead.  “Did _you_ promote anyone, or is this all Mitchell?” 

            “Does it count if he forged my signature?” Jake pondered aloud.  A few people snorted and he grinned as he walked over to give Lin the last file.  “I promoted Sobrie and Polanski, but the rest of it really was overdue.”  He shrugged.  “Honestly, we interact with the rest of the military so little that it’s mostly academic.” 

            “Except wages,” Jerome pointed out, considering the raise he’d apparently… been earning since the start of August, by the paperwork.  He smirked.  “Dave didn’t even tell you he’d done this until today, did he?” 

            Jake just laughed, and damn, but it was _good_ to see him so relaxed again, after the past year.  “Nope!  But in his defense, I’d basically just gone batshit on him for meddling with my collapsing card house of angst.”  Surprisingly, his body language stayed relaxed, even sheepish as he ducked his head.  “Which… I need to explain.” 

            The bathroom door creaked open ever so slowly then, as a toddler peered in, trying to be subtle, then grinning and making happy nonsense sounds when he realized most of the room was smiling at him.  Addie smiled and stood, reaching for him, only to have the boy giggle and run in the opposite direction to try hiding behind one of the couches. 

            “Go get him,” Leia encouraged in a stage whisper, smile indulgent as she and Dorothy entered and closed the door again.  When Willam only giggled more and ducked further away, she pouted in mock outrage.  “Oh, I thought you said you were going to!” 

            “Uh oh,” Daniella announced as she scooped her nephew up off the floor and he collapsed against her chest, giggling harder.  “Have they been getting you into trouble, little man?”  She made a face at him when he looked up at her, and he tried to copy it, which had her switching to something sillier, and made him collapse into giggles again. 

            Overall, Willam Fonne was a happy baby; Rome could only think of a bare handful of times he had ever heard him cry.  Granted, the soundproofing of the house was excellent, so he might just be missing the tantrums, but he wasn’t inclined to complain. 

            Cradling the back of the baby’s head to bring him closer to her chest, Daniella met Jake’s eyes curiously.  “Should I leave you all be, then?” she asked.  Looking them all over, she suggested, “Maybe after getting you something to drink?” 

            Jake made a face briefly and waved her off.  “He’s fine, Danny, just take a seat.  I…. I’m just trying to find a good starting point.” 

            “Um,” Lin announced awkwardly.  “Before we dive into that, could you maybe explain this?”  He was staring into his file with a mildly bewildered expression. 

            The colonel chuffed out a laugh, suddenly looking remarkably pleased with himself.  “I promoted you.” 

            “Yeah, but- ” 

            “And then Mitchell promoted you too,” Jake rode over him happily.  “I was wondering what was taking so long to get the approval through, but apparently between the timing, the wording, and Mitchell’s blatant but believable perjury?  I guess my reputation unnerved someone enough that they just bulled through the red tape for me.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had notoriety be so useful on _accident_ before, but it’s awesome.” 

            Lin’s expression was disbelieving now.  “You’re serious.” 

            “I would’ve done it soon enough anyhow,” Jake agreed, grin broadening.  “Congratulations, Major.” 

            _Wow._   And now, since technically Lin had assignment seniority, he outranked Mai.  He was _actually_ second to only Jake.  Which led to another realization.  “How long do we have before you resign?” 

            In retrospect, he should have realized that that question would hit like a landslide. 

            The man gave him an arch look as he completely ignored everyone’s reactions and spoke firmly over a few shocked demands.  “Officially?  Whenever it’s politically advantageous.  In practice, it happened in August and everything since has been an exercise in keeping my hands busy.” 

            Addie crossed her arms.  “And then just what are you going to do?” she demanded. 

            Jake rolled his eyes.  “Whatever needs doing?”  His lips twitched in an aborted smirk.  “I’m still not cleaning the damn chicken coop, before you go getting ideas.” 

            Lin sagged in relief.  “Oh, thank God.” 

            “None of you seriously thought I was trying to bail,” Jake insisted.  “That would be stupid.” 

            “I actually didn’t,” Jerome hurried to put in.  He was just going to have to blame his wording on sleep deprivation; this was normally the middle of the night for him. 

            “You do have a martyr complex,” Dorothy offered in a conversational tone. 

            Jake sighed and closed his eyes briefly.  “Okay… I deserved that.” 

            “See?” 

            “If we could all agree,” Relena cut in pointedly, “that my boyfriend is only trying to staunch scandal, can we get back to the subject at hand?” 

            “It _does_ look bad if you sleep with your boss,” Mai agreed with a nod. 

            “ _Political agenda_ ,” the colonel announced loudly.  “Discussion.  We’re having it.” 

            Everyone hushed, letting silence fall…  And it stayed. 

            Lin groaned, collapsing in on himself a little.  “We’re _bad_ at this.” 

            Relena sighed and raised a hand to pinch at the bridge of her nose.  “I’m not sure where to start.” 

            “I’m only here for the entertainment value,” Dorothy offered haughtily. 

            “Good, I’m not sure I’m above a gag if you tried your version,” Lincoln groused tiredly. 

            “I know,” the noblewoman agreed simply, leaning back. 

            “Um… the beginning, maybe?” Hayden offered tentatively. 

            “I’m starting to think that goes back to the ‘70s,” Vaughn argued in with a resigned tone. 

            “It… maybe does.” 

            Jerome looked up in surprise at Mu, who had so far been doing an admirable job of fading into the cabinetry.  She was usually on the quiet end, of course, but considering everything…  Well, he’d been a little surprised to see her here at all. 

            Maybe this was the colonel’s fucked up idea of an exit interview? 

            “You know what, _fine_.”  Jake threw up his hands.  “I think I was about six the first time I met Treize.  I never got a straight answer out of my uncle about _why_ we were visiting Duchess Khushrenada, but I can make a few guesses, and I’m not going into it for liability reasons, but…  I must have done something that caught Treize’s attention, because later he was the first person outside my family I ever sought out.  Looking back, I know that the three of us were a pile of paradoxes wrapped up in an efficient skill set that he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to, but at the time?  He was that less irritating than usual older kid I saw or messaged with sometimes.”  He grimaced, covering his eyes with one hand.  “That’s not really…  Fuck it, I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter anyway.  When I ran out of ways to terrorize Jack into abandoning me in 184, I asked him for advice and it wasn’t long before I was being charged with something damning enough that I’d have been locked up if Amarianna Khushrenada hadn’t descended like an angel with a loophole to put me in military school under her sponsorship instead.  By the time my old man figured out he’d been swindled, the papers were already signed and I’d scampered off to Luxembourg, who refused him a visa because he was a terrorist.” 

            “Jack was a terrorist?”  Cassidy sounded incredulous. 

            Jake waved a hand again dismissively.  “Jack served with at least two separate L1 militias attempting to consolidate colonial independence,” he corrected.  “It had literally nothing to do with terrorism, but it’s less embarrassing to fall victim to a terrorist than a privateer, so that’s what the Alliance labeled him.  Anyway-” 

            “I’m sorry, but did you just say your dad used to be a _space pirate_?” Vaughn demanded. 

            “I’m really _not_ in the mood to talk about my family’s trend of career choices,” Jake announced sourly.  “I’m trying to actually get somewhere with this.” 

            “So you got Khushrenada sponsorship into the Specials in 184?” Jerome tried to clarify, moving the subject along. 

            “Early 185.” 

            “You… would have only been… nine,” Olivia pointed out, eyes narrowing. 

            “Efficient skill set.”  He pointed at her warningly when her mouth opened again.  “Questionable familial lifestyles, _not_ going into it.  Jack had to sit on it and stew while I ran off to Lake Victoria and went about building a life with the people he’d dedicated his life to fighting.  Treize and I were pretty close by the time term started, and then I met David, and Lu, and we were all part of a happy little dysfunctional war school sitcom with live rounds until my uncle got himself killed in 188 and I went off the rails.  Treize falsified my bereavement leave so I wouldn’t get court-martialed and sent Dave off after me – more to cover the tracks of any havoc I managed to wreak than anything else. 

            “When I gave up the ghost in 189, I at least brought back evidence of colonial operations that would eventually lead to Operation Meteor as a consolation prize, and was brought back into the fold like I’d never left.  He started sending me on more and more diplomatic missions that boiled down to espionage mixed with surgical strikes after that, and when things got darker in 191, I officially retired from the Specials so it was easier to be where I was needed without arranging accountability for General Catalonia.” 

            “I met you in 191,” Addie pointed out, frowning. 

            “I did a lot of odd jobs, not just Treize’s dirty work,” he reassured her.  “I was already planning to leave even before he asked me to; I’d gotten everything I wanted out of OZ by then and was ready to move on.  At some point the administrative shit he had me doing stopped being a cover so much as a job and, well…”  He shrugged.  “I’m good at it, and I saw things that needed doing.  It gave me more time to meet with Leia, and I was worming my way in deeper into the cyber underworld too… which was what eventually got me the connections to insinuate myself into White Fang.”  He paused and flicked his eyes over them, watching their reactions.  “That was a Treize request, by the way.  I’d been trying to track Howard back down and sweet talk him into letting me coordinate from _Peacemillion_ when he landed me with that one, but…”  He shrugged.  “He made a good case, and he didn’t have anyone else with the right leverage to slip in.” 

            “I’d wondered about that,” Cassidy admitted after a long moment of quiet.  “I mean, in Amsterdam, before everything went to hell, you practically admitted to Minister Torraines assassination.  White Fang’s ideals… I figured either you really didn’t do your homework, which just isn’t you, or you’d never gotten out of espionage in the first place.” 

            Jake’s smile was all teeth and no warmth.  “You’re hardly the first.  Zechs asked too, before he took me on for the Regime.” 

            “Well, yeah,” Hayden added.  “But Treize died, so it’s a moot point.” 

            _And here we go._  

            Jake closed his eyes, sighing.  “Treize was my first friend and his mom was the closest thing I had to one, so when she died, we got even closer.  When he asked me to meet his girlfriend, I snuck out with him.  When he realized he had people gunning for his back, I spied for him.  And after a while, when he showed me someone dangerous, I killed for him.  We uncovered the scraps of Operation Meteor together.  I ran myself ragged fucking up the communication lines between the colonies in 195 to keep the Bartons three steps behind him during the war, and when I heard Tallgeese had been destroyed, I threw up until I passed out.  I thought…”  He sucked in a deep breath, jaw clenching.  “He’d tried to warn me he thought it might be coming, but I wouldn’t believe it, and then all I could see was what I hadn’t done to prevent it.” 

            “Fuck,” someone muttered under his breath. 

            “So when he texted me four hours later and asked me to stay close to Zechs, I didn’t hesitate.” 

            “ _Fuck_!” 

            No one else broke the silence though, so the colonel continued.  “As soon as I woke back up, though, I was already trying to muddy the waters.  Before I got confirmation on Tallgeese, I wiped Heavyarms’ signature from the Dolls’ database, so Zechs couldn’t track him; they already had satellite imaging on the three that crashed, though, so there wasn’t much to do there.  In hindsight it’s probably a damn good thing I couldn’t find a trace of Shenlong, but that’s because he _didn’t_ kill my adoptive brother, and actually bailed long before it was done.  It didn’t take long to realize that the Regime takeover of the World Nation was probably best for everyone involved, so I helped on the digital end, and buried myself in search and rescue maneuvers until the American borders closed. 

            “When I saw the morons Marquise put in charge of cyber security for his new network, I corrupted it.  When Zechs asked me to hunt for the gundam pilots, I accepted.  Never got jack shit for most of them, but I laid and chased a few false trails on each.  Forwarded traces on Yuy, who I actually _did_ manage to catch out at least slightly a few times, to Treize while I made a show of tracking him with Zechs’ people in vaguely nearby areas a few times, but no one ever got close enough to count.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Honestly, I feel like I spent most of that year trying to find the most incompetent people ever to handle the groundwork because Winner was _that_ bad at not being seen.  I lost _track_ of how many false trails I put down on that kid just to try to divert attention…” 

            He sighed, looking up and around the room at each of them.  “And then Relena started stirring the pot.  I was curious, and would’ve stepped in even if Treize hadn’t asked me for an evaluation.  She hadn’t lost any of the potential she’d been loaded with in 195, and her most crippling problems were insecurity and a lack of resources – I wanted to see what she could do without those blocks.  The further things went, the more promising they looked, and I figured I’d have a yay or nay for my friend on whether to let the cat out of the bag before Christmas.  Then…” 

            Relena stood when he trailed off, taking a step towards him.  “Then Munich happened?”  Her tone was half questioning.  “That was when the mask started to slip.” 

            “You stopped being just another project,” he admitted wryly, meeting her eyes as he crossed his arms.  “I couldn’t think about it that way anymore, and it just kept…”  He shook his head slightly.  “After I woke up from that clusterfuck in Amsterdam, I realized I hadn’t given Treize anything on you since September.  And… I didn’t want to correct it.” 

            He licked his lips.  “I didn’t want to turn on you, but I didn’t want to betray him either, so I thought if I just waited, maybe things would fall out the way they were supposed to.  I hid behind both your and my recovery as an excuse for Treize.  I convinced David he wanted all our loyalists at his back on the Strike Force so I could rebuild your household, and I _waited_ , and… it only got worse.  The more I helped pull you away from your brother, the less sure I was about how you would respond to Treize.  The more power you gained, the more influence, the more I saw how _genuinely_ you could lie, and…”  He looked down, and let out a weak, humorless little laugh.  “And then I find out by _accident_ that you’ve been playing me from day one just as hard as I was you.” 

            Her smile was gentle.  “I know that when Milliardo realizes I intend to overthrow him, I’m only going to get one chance.  If you were willing to turn me away when I could _see_ what it was costing you, I wasn’t going to waste what we had.”  She shook her head.  “We really are matched, you know.” 

            He brought his hands up to cover his face.  “Believe me,” he muttered.  “I’m never going to forget it.”  Taking a deep breath, he stood up straight and brought his hands back down to his hips, looking around at them all sharply.  “Well?  Questions?” 

            Cassidy frowned.  “I feel like I’m supposed to be surprised, but I’m not.” 

            “I accepted this assignment because I _wanted_ her in charge,” Marsden pointed out bluntly.  “I said that when I interviewed.” 

            “I’m… not really getting how this changes anything?” Hayden admitted. 

            “Treize is alive and we’re going to ally with him against the Regime,” Lin summed up. 

            Hayden gave him a bemused look.  “Okay, and?” 

            “I don’t really understand why Treize was ever painted in such a bad light,” Addie put in conversationally, standing up and moving to take her son back from Daniella. 

            “Politics, mostly,” John offered, stretching his arms over his head.  “I mean, he did some pretty heinous stuff, but it was war.”  He shrugged.  “Anyway, the guy had – shit, _has_ – one of the lowest civilian casualty counts of any general in the past three decades.” 

            _God, isn’t that a sobering thought._   He wasn’t sure how much that said about Treize versus what humanity had come to… but you couldn’t actually pull the two apart and put them in a vacuum.  Treize had arguably done what he had _because_ he was disgusted with the current system.  People didn’t violently overthrow multiple governments when they were satisfied with the status quo. 

            “I’d like a few more details,” Illian admitted after a minute.  “But it makes sense.”  He looked around curiously.  “Who else didn’t already know?” 

            “I’m from Vermont,” Sasha pointed out sharply.  “I’m with you, Relena, but your brother can go fuck himself.” 

            Relena offered Jake a little smirk.  “Told you.” 

            “You can’t really have thought it was an accident that half of your staff is from the States,” the man deadpanned. 

            “Mu is the only one who ever made a point of it.” 

            “The Americans keep forgetting that they aren’t the only ones who had their hometowns razed to the ground in the past twenty years,” Vaughn announced in a dangerous tone, eyes narrowed.  “No one even _remembers_ the name of where I grew up; the Alliance just relocated the survivors and told everyone it was an accident.” 

            Jake breathed out sharply through his nose.  “Yeah, that… I wasn’t sure how much you knew about that.” 

            “I’m five years older than you,” Vaughn pointed out.  “You’re too young to know much either.” 

            “I make a habit of data mining for dirty secrets.  It’s hard to even find proof it happened though, beyond human memory.  They scrubbed it from the net really fucking hard.”  He shook his head.  “I’d wondered, but wasn’t sure if it’d be okay to ask how you made it; everyone else at your school was incinerated.” 

            “Wasn’t at school.”  He smirked.  “Me and Tony ditched and took this sweet little convertible joyriding.”  He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.  “Ditched it at a chop shop when we realized the owner was dead, though.” 

            Jake blinked, mouth twitching.  “A third and fourth grader skipped school… to steal a car.” 

            Vaughn smirked, though that dangerous glint hadn’t left entirely.  “I was tall for ten.”  His smile widened.  “And you hired me for my efficient skill set.” 

            Their commanding officer groaned, but Mu looked horrified.  “What happened?” 

            “‘Accidental missile launch,’” Vaughn informed her grimly, making air quotes.  “The dirty kind, so they wouldn’t even let anyone rebuild until nobody cared enough to want to anymore.  Sixteen of them, all ‘coincidentally’ aimed at public buildings.”  He scowled.  “Beyond that I’ve got no fucking idea, but I call bullshit.” 

            “Everyone I could find even obliquely mentioned in reference to it in the military is dead,” Jake added.  “So unless they missed a hard database or paper files somewhere, we’ll never know.” 

            Vaughn made a face, but some of the tension eased out of him.  “Yeah, I know.  It happened, and it is what it is, you know?  I just wish people weren’t so quick to forget.”  He snorted.  “My mom would’ve _killed_ me if she’d lived to see me join the Regime.  Tony too, if he wasn’t too busy popping meth to notice the world tried ending.” 

            Illian grimaced.  “I only went into the Alliance for the education, and my dad still wouldn’t talk to me for months.  He didn’t start warming back up until I showed him I flunked out of flight school.” 

            “ _Yes_ ,” Vaughn crowed proudly leaning over to give the smaller man a high five.  “I threw those tests so hard they hit the damn _wall_.  No fucking way I wanted in a mobile suit.” 

            “You’ve seen my reflexes,” Illian pointed out dryly.  “After that, I just had to show them how bad I was with computers.  They still let me take all the math and biology I wanted.”  He glanced over to Relena.  “I like numbers.  And it’s cool, knowing how stuff works.” 

            The princess shrugged, looking content.  “You’re good at numbers, and you got your biology degree, didn’t you?” 

            “Yes and yes,” he agreed proudly.  “I still want a rose garden.” 

            “I can’t do roses,” Jake cut in.  “They’ll end up in the house, and just… no.” 

            “What’s wrong with roses?” Dorothy protested. 

            “ _Treize_ , is what.  I will _not_ have roses in my house, pick something else.”  Relena started giggling, leaning against his side. 

            “They’re the easiest thing to crossbreed,” Captain Derusha whined.  “And this is a good climate for most species!” 

            “Man up and pick something a little harder, then!”  He wrapped an arm around the princess and pulled her closer, completely ignoring her laughter.  “ _Anything_ else.” 

            “Don’t worry, Illian,” Olivia called.  “The Sanc Palace has a _lovely_ rose garden.” 

            “ _Had_ ,” Jake corrected immediately.  “They’re all dead now and we can plant something else.” 

            “As fascinating as I find this debate,” Mu interrupted in a dry tone, “wasn’t there anything _else_ you wanted to go over?” 

            Jerome watched the colonel’s eyes light up and he pulled away from Relena to pick up another manila folder.  “This is for you,” he offered, tone happy, but sober.  “You’re under no obligations to accept, but… he _needs_ someone with your background.  I didn’t know until today, but he’s made a pact with the old A0 colonies, and he can’t afford a misstep.  This is honestly the perfect fit sort of assignment I was waiting on for you before Dave jumped the gun, but with your experience with us added on?  You’re the perfect solution to start rebuilding the bridge between us and Treize.”  She reached for it, and he flicked his wrist up slightly in warning, making her meet his eyes.  “But only if you want it.  My offer still stands.” 

            “Wait, what?”  Hayden was narrowing his eyes. 

            “It’s a hell of an honor either way, and he won’t hold it against you if you refuse,” Jake continued, letting her take it now.  “But you should realize how rare it is for him to request someone personally like this.  Look it over and let me know within a couple of days if you want me to make the arrangements, okay?” 

            _Damn._   Mu looked like she was about to start shaking. 

            Before he could make up his mind what to do about it though, Mai was sweeping in and taking the other woman by the arm.  “This calls for carbs.  We should go find where Addie’s hidden the chips.” 

            “We don’t have any,” the blonde woman insisted without looking away from her baby. 

            “She’s lying,” Mai informed them all in a singsong as she pulled Mu along with her into the bathroom to shortcut to the second floor.  “But that’s okay, because I keep a stash.” 

            “Um…”  Hayden looked around at them all in confusion.  “So Mu’s going to work for Treize?” 

            “Mu has _always_ been working for Treize,” Jerome explained tiredly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.  He didn’t want to be insensitive when Jake was obviously going out of his way to handle the situation delicately, but it needed to be said. 

            “…Huh.”  He seemed to think about that for a long moment before shrugging and turning back to Jake.  “Okay.  So what now?” 

-

***

-

**Rotterdam, Netherlands**

            _So, that won’t take long to bite me in the ass._   All the same, he sauntered out of the place like he owned it, confident he had at _least_ ten minutes before everything imploded.  He still wasn’t totally decided on what he was going to _do_ with said ten minutes if he still had no back-up in town, but he figured he had at least until he got across the street to sort that out. 

            He was actually starting to worry about ‘Liss; it wasn’t like her or Amos to not answer him, though he supposed none of them were used to cell phones anymore.  At the same time, the kid was usually glued to the damn thing…  He was starting to wonder if the piece of shit he’d bought down here was so bad it wasn’t _receiving_ anything.  Or sending.  It wasn’t exactly like there was quality control for phones that cost about the same as a good burger. 

            Really, everything had been going great until he met this bunch of territorial losers; they reminded him an awful lot of the Slingers, which meant he probably wouldn’t’ve been able to work with them in the best of times, so it wasn’t much of a loss.  If they managed to run him out of town, though, that would undo a lot of the work he’d already put in negotiating with the other sectors of the city.  He could _probably_ lone wolf this shit and not get run out, but he didn’t _know_ Rotterdam like he did his own town, and no one was _answering_ either the cell or the shop phone, which were the only ones he’d bothered memorizing. 

            _Note to self: memorize Heero’s fucking number._   The guy was always helpful in a pinch, but honestly, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have issues with a phone he provided.  _Well, **probably** with the phone he gave me._   He needed to memorize Quatre’s too, while he was at it. 

            In his defense, it had been a damn long time since he might need to contact someone he couldn’t just go find.  Having a cell phone again, even a crappy one, was surreal, and that was a little sad. 

            “Hey.” 

            He didn’t recognize her at first, with the ruby red hair and dark framed glasses, but she was looking at him like he _should_ , so he focused on the lines of her face, the color of her eyes… and frowned.  “You,” he pointed out, starting to walk again.  “Are not my wife.”  _And what the hell is Heero feeding this kid, anyway?_   She was the same height as Melissa now. 

            The girl snorted, keeping pace with him.  “You said you were worried about security, so I designed that phone to lock down if it didn’t get your fingerprint every other day, you know.” 

            _Oh._   That wasn’t a bad idea, in theory, but… _Shit._   ‘Liss was going to kill him. 

            “So your wife started to freak out when Adam came looking for you and got ahold of my brother,” she continued.  “Who caught a flight to Amsterdam before checking out what actually happened.” 

            “That’s almost sentimental of him,” he couldn’t help but point out, smirking.  

            Marlé – Harlé? Audi?  Audi – rolled her eyes.  “He could have thought it out a little better, but he’d still be a couple hours out anyway; he was in Poland when he got the call.  Adam and your people are still maybe a half hour away.” 

            “So how did you get in so fast?” 

            “Hid in a cargo hold,” she explained dismissively.  “And I was running an errand for Cat when Odin called, so I was closer.  Skye’s nearby if we need him, but I’m not actually sure whatall he’s good at.  He keeps an awful lot of knives, though; I counted at least twelve, and those were obvious.” 

            He grimaced; at least he knew who Audi _was_ , but beggars couldn’t be choosers.  “Call him.”  He had, like, five minutes to come up with a plan that wasn’t ‘run and hide’ – though if Melissa and the other Devils were as close as Audi said, that was also a lot more doable. 

            “Gimmie yours first,” she demanded, reaching for his back pocket and snagging it before he could.  “When I told them where you were, ‘Liss was scared to distract you.  She won’t call until you do-” 

            “You said it wasn’t ringing!” he protested. 

            “No, but Adam’s with her now,” she lectured, quickly tapping out a ten digit number and hitting send before handing it back and pulling her own phone seemingly out of her freaking underwear.  He honestly hadn’t thought _that_ particular ability of Heero’s was learnable.  “Yo, Skye!” 

            _“Kay?”_   Melissa sounded tense. 

            He blew out a breath, feeling tired.  “Hey, sorry,” he muttered quickly.  “Technical issues, apparently.” 

            _“We heard,”_ she confirmed.  _“I got all your messages at once.  Are you okay?”_  

            “For now.”  He licked his lips, mind skittering back to trying to make a _plan_.  “I’ve got Audi here, and…”  He huffed out an annoyed breath, turning back to the redhead.  “Who the hell is Skye, anyway?” 

            “One of Cat’s friends,” she returned easily, already disconnecting the call and tucking it down the front of her pants again as she scanned their surroundings.  “High ground?” 

            “Sure, why not.”  _One of Quatre’s.  Okay, that’s not so bad then._   “Okay, well, I’ve got two people with me, and they’re not _you_ , but-” 

            _“Do what you need to.”_   Though she still sounded upset.  _“We’ll be there soon.”_  

            He really needed to go, but he needed to know for sure.  “Thirty minutes?” 

            She made a vaguely sick sounding noise.  _“Less – but I **never** want to let this man drive again.  He ploughed right through the traffic laws a while ago and now he’s working on the natural ones.”_  

            He grimaced; he’d had _no_ idea she got motion sick.  “You know I’m probably worse, right?” 

            _“Twenty minutes,”_ he heard Trowa call out in a flat tone, his focus obviously on the road.  _“I’d say fifteen, but I can’t manage that without a splashy entrance.”_  

            A chorus of moans and curses came through the line, and he winced again.  “As subtle as he can manage, please,” he told Melissa.  “I’ve got to go.  Love you.” 

            _“Going to hold you to that,”_ she groaned, hanging up. 

            God, but he hoped he wasn’t going to regret wherever they’d gotten a car from. 

-

***

-

**L4**

            “How light are we going?” Tay asked distractedly as he opened a drawer. 

            Priya pursed her lips, considering, then shook her head.  “I had to come to you for help,” she pointed out.  “That means we’re doing it your way, from here; you decide.” 

            The young man made a face and grabbed a few seemingly random articles of clothing and dropped them on the top of the dresser before bumping the drawer shut again and walking over to his closet.  “One bag, then,” he announced without looking back.  “And something that you can shoulder if we’re in a hurry.” 

            She scowled.  “I prefer to have wheels,” she complained.  Carrying a suitcase over even _half_ the distance she had already put herself through on this chase sounded utterly unappealing. 

            “Then be willing to ditch whatever’s in it if we’re pressed,” Taylor dismissed, grabbing a rucksack that could only hold maybe five days worth of clothes.  “The timetable can be fluid, sometimes.” 

            “That’ll work,” she agreed after a moment – anything important or incriminating, she could keep in her purse.  In any case, there was something freeing about traveling with next to nothing, just buying anything you needed as you went.  “Did you come up with something to tell your dad?” 

            He made an irritated noise.  “I’m twenty, not ten.  I don’t have to have a reason to go run around if I want to.” 

            Priya frowned.  Fred _really_ wasn’t someone she wanted upset with her.  “But what did you _tell_ him?” she asked a little more insistently. 

            “That the guys over in Mech invited me on a walking tour around Europe,” Tay returned, though his voice now dripped with scorn.  “You know, before it starts getting stupid cold again.  Maybe see some historical shit before someone decides to blow it up.” 

            She paused.  “You seriously told him that?” 

            He looked over at her as he strode back to the dresser and rolled his eyes.  “I sugarcoated it a bit, but yeah.  He tried to talk me out of it, and I reminded him that he and Mom didn’t raise an idiot.  He threw up his hands and walked, and Mom tossed me a wink before scurrying after to calm him down.”  He shook his head.  “It’s basically junior year all over again, version two point oh.” 

            _Ooh…_   That _had_ been a good time.  Too bad this was more work than play – Tay could seriously party with the best.  “You think your mom’s onto us again?” she asked curiously. 

            “At least by half,” Tay agreed cheerfully as he tossed his tablet and a few other electronics in the bag.  “I’m pretty sure she thinks the big secret is that it’s with you and Felicia, Torie, and Vanya, though, instead of the guys.” 

            “Scandalous,” she intoned dryly.  “Your best friend and a couple relatives.  _So_ much worse than those frat boys that got you into hookah.” 

            “I know, right?  Sometimes he has some seriously questionable priorities.”  He strode into the bathroom and dug a small case out from under the sink.  “Call us a ride to the port; if they can be here in under ten, we should be able to catch the evening ferry to L1 Earthbound.” 

-

***

-

**Rotterdam, Netherlands**

            “Look at this suspiciously convenient alleyway!  I like it so much, I’m not going to question it!”  Marie dropped her voice into a less stupid cadence as she watched Duo shift his weight and shrug confidently, saying something.  “Well, don’t mind me, I’m totally innocent.  You were saying?” 

            Skye groaned through her earpiece.  _“Are you shitting me?”_  

            “Why not?” she argued happily, eyes fixed on the confrontation below, her fake glasses pushed up on top of her head.  She was supposed to wait for Duo’s signal, but she needed to be sure there wasn’t a reason to act earlier either.  “It’s not like you have any idea what they’re saying either, and you can _hear_ them.”  She hadn’t even realized Dutch was a real language before Moira dragged her to Amsterdam. 

            _“You,”_ Skye groused, grudging amusement obvious in his voice, _“are going to be either the best or the absolute worst thing **ever** for my poker face.”_  

            She grinned wide enough that her face hurt at that, shifting from her crouch to kneel – she liked the angle through the bars better, this way.  The third story apartment whose balcony she was borrowing was definitely lived in, but she’d made sure nobody was home before settling in.  She could skitter fast if she had to – it wouldn’t he a hard route from here up another couple balconies to the roof – but this one had the best cover she could find, between the heavy furniture and potted plants, while still being close enough that her shots should be _perfect_.  If this went down the way it was supposed to, no one would be firing on her, but, you know – you were supposed to plan for everything to go to hell, if you want to be prepared. 

            She liked having back-up plans for her back-up plans.  She could probably still be totally accurate from on the roof if she needed to, and it had enough of a lip to make for a perfect bullet screen, but there was no reason to make this harder than it had to be.  Duo was counting on her – she was going to do her best. 

            **_“There you are,”_** her phone murmured quietly. 

            _Huh._   That was Odin’s text noise… and almost two hours earlier than she thought he’d be getting back on the ground.  _I wonder what happened._   All the same, she kept her eyes focused on the men below, smirking at their overconfident swagger and Duo’s sly nonchalance.  The one in the lead actually thrust his chest forward a little as he spoke up and took a step closer – classic bully bullshit.  “We’re gonna grind your bones to make our bread!” she growled out boastfully.  It fit pretty well – looking between him and the ex-gundam pilot, he had to be something like 6’5. 

            _“That’d be some mortar and pestle,”_ Skye added dryly. _“They make them that big?”_  

            “Shh, they might hear you,” she protested, taking a long, deep breath to keep from giggling.  Her newfound friend was only a couple yards away from the others, ready to be the second half of a pincer while she added confusion to the mix, taking debilitating potshots in general, herding them where Duo wanted them if needed… stopping them if either he or Skye were truly in danger, but only as a last resort.  She would have insisted on that rubric anyway, but it was nice to know that Odin’s old friend only wanted to spook them, make them hurt enough that they’d think twice about being assholes down the line, not, you know… _eliminate_ the opposition.  She’d read his texts to Melissa during her flight – for the most part, he was just trying to extend the resource and intelligence network he’d cooked up in Amsterdam, and otherwise, make friends.  This gang deciding it was a power play so he could take their territory was really stupid.  And that attitude would hurt everyone more long-term than whatever happened today. 

            And anyway, with this?  She could read between the lines.  If this gang actually caught him with his pants down or chased him out, it would have really far-reaching effects – the Dutchman was becoming a legend, and word would spread like wildfire.  It wouldn’t matter that he’d been alone in a city he didn’t know; there’d probably be no real coming back from it.  But if the three of them kicked ass?  It would… would… 

            She frowned.  _What spreads faster than a wildfire?_   She’d, like… run out of metaphor. 

            _It would be **big** , anyway.  _

            Skye chuffed at her for bossing him around, but shushed anyhow.  Marie held her breath in for a long count, then slowly began to let it out, focusing on her heartbeat as she relaxed into the flowing hyperfocus Odin had begun teaching her over a year ago.  He hadn’t really known what it was – he still thought she was making crap up when she said most people didn’t ever do it – but…  

            If you could do it, everything got easy.  Every tiny motion you made, every breath, it was intentional, _exact_ , and it was like everything you tried, you did at the razor peak of what you could do on a really good day – only it just kept going.  It was hard to stay there for long, but it got easier to find the better you got at something without it, and for her?  Shooting was probably the easiest way in.  That or parkour. 

            She was pretty sure that Odin hadn’t _not_ been in flow for a long time, which was sorta crazy, but, well… would explain a lot. 

            A comfortable weight settled into her bones as her heart slowed, and she felt warm as she smirked, pulling in another long breath, flicking her focus between the handful of guys confronting Duo for a moment to make sure she hadn’t missed anything – before starting to pick favorites.  Giant’s hand, where he was holding the handle of his colt wrong… it’d be easy to make him drop it.  Blondie’s left leg, where he liked to rest his weight; Dumbo would be tricky but if she got a clear line, _so_ worth it.  Beer Shirt and Green weren’t wearing bulky jackets, so she could hit them in the arms without worrying about estimating depth and nicking an artery… 

            Giant postured a little more, and Duo made a placating gesture as he said something else, still with a half casual and half deadly smile just a _little_ too mocking instead of sheepish.   _‘You sure you want to play this game?’_  

            Green jerked his chin in a jeer, _‘You don’t scare us!’_  

            Duo tipped his head a little to one side.  _‘That sounds like a you problem.’_  

            The air grew thick as she held her breath, almost sleepy, as everything seemed to slow, heart dropping into the forties, and she resisted the urge to sprawl like a lazy cat – instead taking a moment to flex her hands in a deep stretch before resettling her grip and breathing out.  She allowed herself a slow blink before focusing back on the scene below her, deep in a trance.  _Any moment now…_   She was ready. 

            She was a good shot on the fly, but if she could stay in the zone?  She was freaking _awesome_. 

            Duo shrugged in an exaggerated way in response to something else they said, raising one hand palm up before shifting to point at the sky. 

            _Ready._  

            He made a slow twirling motion with it. 

            In the moment between one heartbeat and the next, Marie shot the gun in Giant’s hand.  He dropped it with a curse, but by then, she already had Blondie dropping to the ground and two deep grazes across Beer’s dominant arm.  While their eyes were still busy widening, the ex-pilot darted forward and slammed a fist into the underside of Giant’s jaw so he dropped like a sack of bricks and spun to drive an elbow deep into the solar plexus of Green so he doubled over. 

            Her next shot was Beer’s off-shoulder, because he had a gun at each hip instead of just one, and he hadn’t done more than hiss and grimace at his left arm yet.  Angles were still bad on Dumbo, so she creased his hip instead so he’d stagger, or at least be slower.  Goatee was raising a gun she hadn’t been able to see before, so she got him solidly in the elbow – he screamed. 

            She didn’t let the sound touch her.  He hadn’t been planning to just graze Duo enough to make him back off. 

            Another one she hadn’t made a nickname for yet started to split for the alley mouth, and she narrowed her eyes as she waited for the next heartbeat to finish.   _Best target?_ she debated, probably a leg- 

             He screamed, a knife sprouting from his Achilles, and went down face first. 

            Oh right.  Skye. 

            The next gap brought another four bullet creases over sensitive, hard to ignore areas and she ejected her clip automatically to slide her spare home… but there was really nothing left to bother with.  All their attackers were down, either unconscious or disinterested in moving…  Though Beer Shirt guy was actually pinned against the freaking _wall_ with a handful of knives while Duo frisked him.  He’d apparently been trying to move out of her line of fire, and it wasn’t a bad attempt, but… Skye.  “You need to teach me that,” she told him seriously, dropping her glasses back onto her face.  Odin never let her throw knives – he said it was stupid to give up a weapon. 

            It was seriously _cool_ , though! 

            _“Yeah, sure.”_   Skye was walking out from behind his cover now to help Duo check for surprises.  _“But for the record?  That was really anticlimactic.”_  

            “Well, we’re not really done yet,” she offered.  “It’s a big city – I doubt this gang only has this many guys.”  The Devils were, like…  Forty people?  Not all of them were fighters of course, but they also really _weren’t_ a normal gang...  _So how many is normal?_  

            Marie scowled as she realized she’d lost the flow.  She had _no_ idea how to answer that question. 

            It _sucked_. 

            _“I don’t actually care,”_ Skye was quick to point out.  _“I’m all for anticlimactic.  Besides, his preferred backup will be here any minute now, right?”_  

            “Right.” 

            _“So let’s just make sure we’re golden.  Meet you down here.”_   The line disconnected. 

            Making a face, she tucked her gun and mostly empty clip back in their holsters and started hunting around the balcony floor for her brass.  _Can I just ask Amos?  No, it’d have to be Duo._   If he even knew.  But if he didn’t, then how was she supposed to figure it out?  She could probably find some sort of statistics study in a sociology journal online, but how _real_ would that actually be?  Would it even be worth the time? 

            She only found eight of her casings – the rest had to have fallen below, and she sighed as she hopped the railing and made her way down to the next level, keeping a sharp eye out.  It wasn’t a big deal, really, if she didn’t find them all – the gun couldn’t be traced back to her – but it was _sloppy_ , and she didn’t like it.  It almost made her wish she had a revolver instead, but she _liked_ having fast access to more than six bullets at a time, and nothing reloaded as smooth as a fresh magazine. 

            She only found two more before she gave it up and started over to the others, but she was mostly sure the last couple were in the big dumpster underneath the balcony she’d claimed, not the ground, so whatever.  “Hey,” she called as she jogged up.  “What next?” 

            Duo narrowed his eyes at her.  “You,” he announced.  “Are terrifying.” 

            _…Ooookay?_   “And helpful?” she suggested skeptically.  

            “You didn’t miss a single target by a freaking millimeter, did you?”  

            She rolled her eyes; he didn’t need to get all weird about it.  “What’s the point in aiming if you’re not gonna pull it off?”  She glanced over at Skye, hoping for back-up. 

            The blonde man held up his hands.  “I know literally nothing about guns.  It was loud; I don’t even know how many times you fired.” 

            “Twelve.” 

            He blinked a few times.  “…Twelve,” he drawled after a long moment, face unreadable. 

            “Yeah?” 

            Skye turned back to Duo.  “In, like, three seconds?” 

            “A little under,” the other man confirmed. 

            “Right.”  He focused back on her and shrugged.  “Sorry, I’m with him on this.  Kinda scary.” 

            Marie rolled her eyes.  “Whatever.”  If they wanted to be dumb, it wasn’t like she could stop them.  “What’s next?” 

-

***

-

**Sweepers Cruiser, near L3**

            “Sir!” 

            “Well, I’ll be,” Howard drawled, lowering his sunglasses to consider the screen more carefully.  “Suppose it was only a matter of time, but still, I had my money on Treize keeping the game up a while longer.”  Though, considering the stats and what the news reporter was actually _saying_ , which was remarkably little?  “Then again, I suppose everyone’s bound to get caught with their pants around their ankles sometime.”  It seemed pretty minor, and unless the Regime was suppressing vital information – he’d check that on a few hours, once the reports had more time to run through their database – no one had actually _learned_ anything. 

            With two armies that big playing cat and mouse in space, it was inevitable that a couple of scouts would stumble on each other sooner or later.  Only a handful of MS had been involved on either side, and casualties had been both mutual and minimal – after testing the waters, both commanders had been keen on the idea of skittering off to deliver information instead of trying to obliterate the other. 

            Frankly, it showed a lot more sense than the Alliance had ever been known for.  Maybe the boys Marquise had kept on payroll were smart enough to look after themselves instead of just dying young and messy by the hundred. 

            He grit his teeth hard, resenting the pointless loss of life the Alliance had always been fond of – other people or themselves, the bastards had never been too picky.  Dermail and Barton had both been _monsters_ , and he’d always hated how all his old friends had been too caught up in their own ambitions to _notice_ that.  Or, if they did, to give a damn. 

            In any case, now those assholes were gone too, and he was left with the knowledge that he – the washout scavenger, as G liked to call him – was the only original gundam engineer alive to see what a fucking _mess_ they’d made of things.  He wasn’t so jaded that he thought it had all been pointless, because he actually understood why Treize had shut down the Alliance; had mostly agreed with the scare tactics the young man wanted to employ as a preventative measure against future warfare, but, well…  He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of something backfiring this fucktastically.  The young people would be decades sorting this shit out, and he might live long enough to see the beginning of the repopulation of the Americas, but he might not, either.  He took pretty good care of himself, but he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken either. 

            He snorted.  _Eh, what’ll be will be.  Quit moping, old man._   “We have anyone close enough to grab the salvage?” he asked his pilot instead, starting to run estimates.  Depending on how much they’d blown to pieces versus disarmed, even small battlefield remains could turn a pretty penny – and if no one picked the trash up while they still knew where it was, space debris could cause big problems.  It was one of the things he liked best about running the space Sweepers; he got to line his pockets and genuinely do the right thing all at the same time. 

            And if he was in a position to help out his favorite young people along the way, well, that was just a bonus.  Those kids had lived through enough hell already to understand the value of life – he’d back them anytime they asked. 

            “Drugger’s close enough,” Peter decided after a moment.  “And it doesn’t look like anyone else is trying to make a claim yet.” 

            “Good!”  He grinned.  “Let’s go be capitalists.” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “ _Bonjour._ ” 

            The boy blinked blue eyes, then frowned self-consciously.  “I don’t…” 

            “Amos, meet Cat,” Odin deadpanned as he followed him in.  “Don’t mind his French.” 

            Quatre choked on thin air, then started laughing, delighted.  Despite the fact that he’d heard his friend make more than a few jokes since finding him again, his sense of humor just…  It was startling.  It was great, but a lot of the time it still felt like it came completely out of left field. 

            The boy relaxed a little at seeing Odin, and glanced back at Quatre while he worried at his lip before facing the other man directly again.  “Everyone’s down in Rotterdam.” 

            Quatre nodded easily, coming further in and looking around.  “Audi told us,” he confirmed in English; he honestly hadn’t thought about what language he greeted the boy in before doing it.  “But by the time we get down there, everyone will be ready to head back, so we thought we’d just wait.” 

            Amos frowned again.  “Audi?” 

            Odin grimaced.  “Harlé.  Maybe she’ll stick with that, with you.” 

            “It’s closer while still being different enough on paper to work,” Quatre agreed. 

            “But Audi has all the right vowels to be closer to her real name, and she’s starting to get lost in the false ones,” Odin argued.  “If I’d realized she’d started to actually think of herself as Marlé, we would have done this sooner.” 

            _Ah.  Name dysphoria._   He could relate.  “You might be overcomplicating the issue,” he warned. 

            Odin tapped his head.  “If the sounds are close enough, she can think of herself by her true name and change out the others as needed without upsetting her foundations.  When we started using Marlé, I wasn’t sure she could do that consistently, so it wasn’t an option; this is better.” 

            _What’s the world coming to when **Heero** is giving me a psychology lesson that makes far too much sense?_ Quatre thought wryly.  _Good things, I hope._  

            Amos was looking concerned, now.  “So… what should I use?” 

            Odin shrugged.  “Ask her.”  He held out a hand.  “Phone, please.” 

            “Can we wait here, or should we get lost?” Quatre asked curiously as Amos dug the device out. 

            “Mm.”  He started fiddling with the screen, seemingly absorbed.  “Is Will here?” 

            “No.  With everything going on…” 

            “Up to Amos, then,” Odin decided, flicking through screens. 

            He couldn’t just leave that lie.  “Who’s Will?” 

            “Duo’s father-in-law with strong facial recognition and loyalty to Treize,” the other man explained distractedly.  “I assumed you’d rather avoid him.” 

            …Yeah, that thought turned his stomach a little.  Even if he still had a hard time recognizing himself in the mirror, that wasn’t something he wanted to play with.  “Have you met him?” he asked curiously. 

            “Not yet, but he knows I’ve come by.”  He looked up, eyes focusing on him.  “Kasey talked him into only telling him about any of us personally, and since he can’t do that while Treize is in space there’s no real threat, but I thought you’d rather avoid the issue entirely.” 

            Odin had either gotten exponentially more perceptive, or had hidden/ignored it extremely well before.  He felt mildly concerned, but for the most part his emotions were his usual flowing confidence – ease of existence.  As far as Quatre was aware, he’d never changed how he handled a situation in light of someone else’s feelings, before they’d reached Jerusalem. 

            Then again, how many times had he turned away from suicide during that long year between _Libra_ and Jerusalem because he was worried about how _Quatre_ would fare without him?  He might have talked himself out of it without that as an excuse but…  There was no reason to short his friend the compassion he’d put in. 

            “Avoidance sounds good,” he admitted.  “Thanks.” 

            Odin nodded, attention back on the phone. 

            “Who’s here?” another boy called, coming out of the room upstairs to lean on the banister and peer down at them.  He was taller than Amos and looked a little older, with darker, wavy brown hair kept shorter than the other’s and grey eyes. 

            “They’re, um…”  He looked up for a moment, thinking before deciding on, “Duo’s friends.” 

            “Ooh!”  The one upstairs practically bounced.  “Are you any good at gravitational equations?  Because I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but my textbook says by answers are wrong and it’s driving me crazy.” 

            Amos made a face and reached up to tug at a short, dark blonde ponytail.  “Normally, we ask Duo,” he explained quietly.  “But he left on Sunday.”  He bit his lip.  “He’s… okay?” 

            “He’s fine,” Quatre reassured him, internally marveling at just how much physical proximity to Odin helped; given how much uncertainty he was picking up from the kid’s body language, he imagined the empathic impact would be significant, if he didn’t have his friend to anchor on. 

            He smirked as another thought occurred to him.  “And you should ask him about gravity,” he announced, jerking a thumb in Odin’s direction.  “I think he has more personal experience with terminal velocity than anyone else alive.” 

            Odin snorted in amusement, but didn’t deny it.  He tipped his head, considering the boy upstairs, before asking, “Nolan?” 

            “Oh, yeah, sorry.”  He stood up straighter.  “Nolan Mehile.” 

            Odin nodded.  “Odin Lowe.”  Jerking a thumb back at Quatre, he added, “Cat Wilson.”  Looking back, he added, “Nolan is Kasey’s brother-in-law; a year older than Audi.”  Flicking his eyes back to the other boy, he added, “Amos is…”  He tipped his head again, debating, before settling on, “Adopted?”  A small shake of the head.  “He’s like Cory.  He turned fifteen last spring.  Kasey homeschools them.” 

            Amos blushed.  “That’s… not the right word, I think.” 

            Quatre smiled, shrugging off his coat.  “I get it; I don’t really have a word for me and Cory either, or Odin and Audi.”  He couldn’t help but remember Dr Samuel Srona’s amusement when he had shown up in Jerusalem with the younger teen in tow, and understood, now, that it was because despite everything, he’d followed the same pattern as Odin of attaching to someone younger who had needed him.  It was interesting to see that Duo had done the same… and for all that Trowa hadn’t, he couldn’t help but wonder if Wufei had done something similar too. 

            Given that he’d survived _Cambyses_ and found the other three, he couldn’t help but believe that Wufei was out there somewhere too.  But with how the Asian man had always been so standoffish… he doubted they would hear from him again unless something forced his hand. 

            He wanted to sit in and watch how Odin handled this, though.  He was sure he could answer questions, but he didn’t have the faintest idea where to start for _teaching_ , and while he wasn’t sure how receptive Cory would be to lessons, he probably needed to start sorting out what to do about the boy’s education.  Even if they decided to put off anything formal for another year or two while Cory’s mind settled into something closer to healthy equilibrium, it was something he _should_ be thinking about. 

            Odin handed the phone back to Amos.  “This should be back to normal now.  I brought something more plain for Kasey, so you can keep it.” 

            The boy’s shoulders relaxed as relief flooded through them.  “ _Thank-you_ ,” he murmured in a heartfelt way, feeling it strongly enough that Quatre picked up hints of it through the smokescreen that Odin’s presence provided. 

            The other man just shrugged and started for the stairs.  “You have a bell or something to put out for while we’re upstairs?” 

            “And a sign,” Amos agreed, moving over to a cabinet.  “I’ll meet you up there.” 

            “Cool.”  He glanced back over his shoulder at Quatre.  “Are you coming, or should I text you when they get back?” 

            “Oh, I’ll shadow,” Quatre returned, following him up.  “Though I’ve been out of school for long enough that I’m not sure I’ll be able to help much.”  His tutors had always kept a very… _regimented_ classroom. 

            Odin snorted, amused again.  “I never went to school.  My father taught me what he thought was relevant, and J arranged material when he found a gap.”  His mouth twisted in a smirk.  “I took a blind run when Audi was studying for her GED and failed almost all the soft subjects.” 

            He probably should have expected that.  “Yeah?” 

            He shrugged a little, still climbing the stairs.  “History was easy enough to fix, but I’ve been taking my time going through the reading list I was recommended for literature.”  Another amused noise.  “Most of the characters are… painful.” 

            Quatre smirked.  “That’s common in the classics.”  He considered, then added, “Or a lot of writing, really.  If you show me the list, I can probably recommend alternatives, or give you cliff notes.  I’m not sure all of them are worth slogging through.”  His own education of classical fine arts had been _extensive_ , and before meeting the Maguanacs and Instructor H, books had been his favorite escape. 

            “Later,” Odin agreed as they reached the landing, a current of pleased anticipation wafting through him, and Quatre smiled.  “I think I’d appreciate that.”  He focused on Nolan, heading over to the table covered in textbooks and paper, drawing out a chair.  “Show me.” 

-

***

-

**Cardiff, Wales**

            Nick fought the urge to groan as he collapsed into the armchair by the window, taking a minute to tune out the world around him.  The music wasn’t bad, it was pouring outside, and he felt toasty warm in here… he could bask in that for a little while, couldn’t he?  He’d missed the rain so much in Africa, even if he’d forgotten how fucking _cold_ it was.  At least his mom hadn’t tossed his favorite coat – though whether that was because it had been lost in the back of the closet or out of sentiment was hard to say. 

            He’d honestly thought he’d be happy to see his mother again.  Looking back, he wasn’t entirely sure _why_ , but he’d kinda figured that being the next best thing to dead for eighteen months would make her see how petty some of the shit they used to fight about was.  It was one of the things that had stuck with him the most while in the belly of the fucking beast of Cambyses: that however awful it had been, he had _needed_ the kick in the ass to change his perspective and grow up a little…  And while he’d have preferred just about any _other_ method for that, you couldn’t change the past.  He’d made it out and was moving on, so that was the important part, right?  The past was past, and you made what you had work; the Stanton family had offered to pay his way through the rest of his arts degree if he wanted – or in a different field if his interests had changed – and he wasn’t about to turn that down, once Trinity’d accepted his re-admission.  It had made sense to enroll for winter and take the fall quarter to reconnect with his mom and work out what he wanted to do with his future. 

            Now though?  God, maybe she _was_ happy he was alive – she’d certainly seemed like it for the first week – but now she’d started to find all new things to hate him for.  Before he’d been grabbed taking his spring break to help build refugee housing instead of meeting with her new boyfriend – who she’d left a few weeks later, so he _really_ didn’t know what the big deal was – it had been about how he was one of those new age hipsters who didn’t give a damn about where they came from, or bother to learn to do anything _useful_ unless it was popular.  And honestly?  Some of that had been true.  But now?  Now he was apparently too much like the father he couldn’t remember that she had always used as an example of how he ought to be when he was little – except it was suddenly a bad thing.  He stayed out too late, he smelled like smoke all the time, he never helped around the house, he didn’t _really_ care, he only pretended to, and couldn’t he use some of that government stipend he got for fighting in the Sahara to replace those fucking awful boots? 

            “’Ere we are,” the cheerful barista who’d taken his order announced in a heavy Scottish brogue as she offered him a mug. 

            “ _Diolch,_ ” he returned automatically, giving her a tired smile as he took it… then smiled more genuinely in spite of himself as he noticed the dollop of crème and cinnamon sprinkled on top. 

            She winked at him, smile turning impish.  “Looked like you could use it, love.”  She tipped her head, hands coming to rest on her hips.  “Long day?” 

            He sighed, bringing the coffee up to his lips.  “Long year.  Mm, that’s great.”  He got odd looks for ordering the low-end crap in nice places like this, but he’d picked up a taste for truly shitty coffee thanks to Jovi’s downright religious need for it.  The cinnamon though… and nutmeg?  That did something _fantastic_ to it.  “Thank-you very much, again.  _Wyt ti’n siarad Cymraeg?_ ” 

            “Ach, not really,” she returned with a shrug.  “It’s a pretty language, but I ‘aven’t the time to learn more’n what you pick up from people.” 

            “Fair.”  He held up his cup in cheers.  “Hope your day is better than mine.” 

            She smiled prettily and winked at him again.  “ _Diolch._ ” 

            Nick grinned, watching her sway as she moved back to the counter before he could catch himself, then hurriedly looking back out at the wet street.  He could _hear_ Robby clicking his tongue in annoyance, muttering _‘Rude’_ like a phantom in his head… and maybe it was twisted, but he _missed_ the guy. 

            _Fuck my life, but perspective is everything, isn’t it?_  

            He usually came home early from his errands and therapy and whatever homework the shrink gave him to get himself back under control – he just went back out when it felt like the walls were closing in around him, to walk the town.  He couldn’t believe he’d ever been content to sit still all the time, before.  It helped, to move, to watch people and how they acted…  It made it easier to remember what normal was.  Sometimes, it made all the difference just to see people act casual, especially women…  God, beyond his mom, the conversation he’d just had was the most he’d been able to talk to a girl since coming back without wanting to throw up.  The context with women had _never_ been good in Africa… 

            His stomach lurched and he closed his eyes, breathing hard.  It wasn’t like they’d targeted women any more than anyone else, but… God, their screams still haunted him.  Robby had drilled them in how it was a mercy to kill quickly, and he believed it even more now than he had at the time, but the terror in their eyes? 

            Sometimes he wondered how he slept at all. 

            He’d refused the sleep aids they pushed at him – he was still getting way more sleep a night now than he had in the desert – but sometimes, the nightmares…  He was just glad his mom was a deep sleeper. 

            There was something soothing about Welsh, too.  No one else had spoken it in Cambyses - or if they did, they didn’t use it, and he hadn’t either.  It was separate enough that it felt safe, and Kenneth had said he should try incorporating it into more of his day-to-day life now that he was at home, and see if it helped.  He thought he might be able to hold a longer conversation with a girl if it wasn’t in English – it was worth a try at least.  Maybe he’d find someone to talk to in a pub later tonight, after his mom was asleep.  His therapist kept trying to get him to make more friends too, but he was still too far away from these people to really _get_ them… and it felt like a waste if he was heading back to school in a few months anyway. 

            It made him wonder if he should have just gone straight back to school instead of coming home after all.  He liked Dublin.  When he was there before, he’d felt like he’d finally started to figure out some of who he was instead of who he was supposed to be – before the world went to hell and all the rules changed.  He hadn’t run into anyone from high school since coming back, and he didn’t feel brave enough to ask where they’d gotten to.  He’d thought about trying to get in touch with his university friends, but they’d be upperclassmen now, and…  Well, maybe it wouldn’t seem like such a big deal when he was there again. 

            Honestly, he was tempted to call Jovi, but… that felt a little too much like giving up.  He missed the guys when he thought he’d never want to see them again, but they’d all told him to look them up if he changed him mind, and said it was fine if he didn’t… and he couldn’t imagine it would be any different with the guys who left with Robby.  Man, more than any of them, he missed _Vaska_ – the man’s blunt way of looking at things had really helped him get his shit together more than once – made him realize that life was as much about _how_ you did something as _what_. 

            He was pretty sure Vaska was the oldest of them.  Or at least, he was the most… wise?  He wasn’t smart, exactly, but he got _emotions_ better than anyone he’d ever met, and that was supposed to be a kind of intelligence, wasn’t it? 

            Maybe he should switch to a psychology major, when he went back to class.  The more he learned from therapy and reading on his own trying to figure out his own headspace, he just… 

            He _knew_ , now, that if Robby hadn’t been as rough with him as he was, he’d have cracked.  The few times he’d seen the guy be more lenient, even, he’d started to fall apart, and looking back, he could see that the guy had _noticed_ and _stopped_.  The implications there weighed a fucking ton, and combined with some of the stuff Cory had implied, before he and Charlie ran off?  That Razo had outright _said_? 

            The fact that he missed Robby was so terrifying as it was in fair part because he was realizing he had no fucking idea just who Robby even _was_.  How much of his commander had been a mask?  But at the same time, it had been a mask made special for each of them, to give them what they needed to pull through… and that kind of compassion was rare anywhere, let alone in the hell they’d been living through.  The more he pulled apart his time in the Sahara, the more he realized just how _much_ Robby had done for them that probably fucked himself over, and that… 

            What were you supposed to _do_ with that? 

            He closed his eyes and took a deep pull from his mug, focusing on the heat filling him…  He’d never thought he would miss the heat.  But here he was, sitting in a high end shop drinking Jovi’s ground dirt excuse for a cup of Joe instead of the sweet mocha he’d preferred before the Fall, trying to work up a little interest in the world he’d been so keen on coming back to. 

            _I,_ he decided sourly, _am a fickle bitch._  

            It was the sort of statement that would have set Skye laughing his ass off, and God help him, the fact that he couldn’t turn and say it to him out loud made him fucking _homesick_. 

-

***

-

**Rotterdam, Netherlands**

            _“Skye?”_  

            “Hey, Bossman,” he returned cheerfully.  “I took a side job as a thug, but I’m ready to get back to business now.  I hear you’re in Amsterdam?” 

            Cat snickered.  _“I am.  Odin was trying to make his life hard when it was easy enough to charter a jet, so I intervened.  Are you coming back with the rest of his people?”_  

            “Well, I could, but the van’s pretty crowded,” Skye allowed, watching all the Dutch people talk amongst themselves.  “Audi’s not committed to heading up with them either, so I figured I’d check in and see if you had anything else useful for us to get done.  Has anyone heard back from Ardith yet?” 

            _“He got in touch, but he’s still up in Norway for another few days,”_ Cat admitted.  _“Are you game to pick up his workload?”_  

            “Sure.  Will I need to hit Szczecin again, or can we get the papers sent somewhere?”  He still butchered the city name every time he tried to say it, but he wasn’t ever going to manage it if he didn’t keep trying. 

            _“They can be sent; I’ll email you the details in a minute.”_   There was the sound of a door shutting, and the other man’s voice gained a little more volume and clarity as he spoke up.  _“Everything went okay?  No one’s hurt?”_  

            “Eh, no one we care about,” Skye allowed, looking up in time to see Audi happily hugging Melissa, who still looked a little green around the gills.  “Looks like a good job all around, but I don’t really know what’s going on, so I can’t say any more than that.”  This Kasey guy was obviously important to Cat or they wouldn’t be all involved in this, but despite how easy Audi was slipping in with them, these ‘Devils’ were insular enough that they set all sorts of alarm bells clanging.  They were tight the same way he was with the other guys, and… well.  He didn’t know them well enough to tell if they’d be cool with a Cambyses survivor or not, and that… really wasn’t something he wanted to find out about in person. 

            _Cambyses Survivor._   He liked the spin the media was putting on it, because yeah, he’d fucking _survived_ that shit, but…  He was kinda glad he wasn’t officially down as someone who’d made it out.  Charlie said that Colonel Mitchell had agreed to have all their names from Robby’s list posthumously cleared the same as the guys who had stayed because of what they’d done taking down Roshan’s encampment, so they could reclaim their identities down the line if they really wanted, but…  That was a _lot_ of stigma.  He’d have to see how most people handled it before he’d think twice about being Skye Kimball again instead of Killian. 

            It wasn’t like he had anybody left to remember him from before anyway; his folks and all his sisters had been in Provo.  He knew his folks had had probably about four years’ worth of food and supplies stashed in the basement, but without a bunker, it was probably a moot point.  He’d done the math, and there might’ve been enough time for the church to pull together and do something before the effects of the Fall really hit, but… 

            Well, it really wasn’t worth thinking about. 

            “Hey,” Audi muttered, trotting up to him.  “Please tell me we’re not getting in that car; someone totally threw up in there.” 

            Skye made a face.  “Nah.  I’m going to-  Hey, Cat?  Where am I going?” 

            _“Saint Petersburg.”_  

            “Fuck, we’re going to need to pick up some fur hats, apparently we’re hitting the Viking version of hell.” 

            She giggled and rolled her eyes, turning to wave a goodbye at the others before heading for a street that would take them back in the direction of the storage locker they’d dropped their duffels in.  “Russia’s not _that_ bad,” she protested.  “Though if your coat’s crap, we can get you a decent one for a good price there, at least.  There’s this shop I hit once in Novgorod that sells awesome stuff lined with rabbit fur – the owner’s wife breeds them in their back yard, and they get _huge_.”  She looked back over her shoulder at him, grinning.  “Taste pretty good too.” 

            And that was that, apparently.  He liked Audi – she flew by the seat of her pants like a pro.  “Send me that info?” he muttered into the phone.  “Then give me a bit to work out a travel plan and I’ll give you a city on our way that’ll be good for you to mail stuff to.” 

            _“Alright.  Safe travels.”_  

            Skye grinned.  “You too, Boss.  Later.” 

-

***

-

**October 25 th 198 – Friday – Near Zahedan, Iran**

            “Right through here, your Excellency.” 

            Chancellor Mason Monteith nodded in the gracious way that was expected of him and continued to follow – he knew where he was going, but sometimes it was better to let the sheep feel useful.  This one was privileged to be here and he knew it – filling out his expectations so he would not only be willing to serve again in the future, but _eager_?  It was worth a little indulgence of annoying habits. 

            Willing soldiers, after all, made for far more capable troops than the indentured. 

            They reached the hangar overlook without incident, and he rested his hands on the railing as he double-checked the count and settled his vertigo into a proper sense of scale.  Relying on something other than your own eyes too often was a bad habit for too many leaders.  It was necessary to delegate, of course, but men lied, whether by mistake or intent.  Seeing something, _knowing_ it by your own senses, was irreplaceable. 

            That had been Dermail’s mistake – believing he understood a situation instead of doing the work himself, walking alongside the young new Queen and keeping a firm hand on the back of her neck to pull her back in line should she go getting ideas.  He’d been a fool to misjudge his partners’ intent to use the girl against him until it was too late.  He never would have thought the Duke was _trusting_ enough to fall into that sort of trap, but, well.  He’d grown old. 

            Perhaps he’d become sentimental. 

            His own family had been well placed to weather the Fall, and he had taken advantage of it.  Peacecraft hadn’t been shy about removing those weak or unwilling to bend in the wake of his massacre, but he also hadn’t been stupid enough to push the southeastern clans enough to tempt them into making a point.  In the wake of _Libra_ ’s destruction, the Middle East and southern Asia had been too valuable to force them into concessions through more warfare – not once he’d changed his mind about killing them all, at least.  Before the Princess had wrangled the heat amplifiers out of the Chinese, it had been the Saudi, Indi, and Asian farms that saw them through the first year of winter.  Afterwards, the African land conversion had hit so many roadblocks that the self-proclaimed emperor found breaking away still too untenable to consider.  Now that they were wading into the territory where Europe and Africa might actually be self-sustaining again? 

            Other measures would be necessary. 

            Compared to what they had had before Treize took over Dermail’s World Nation and threw them away against Peacecraft in a bid to simply survive, this was only a modest collection of MS.  Modest, but growing… and he had some time yet.  There was no point in moving until Peacecraft had spent his best putting down the latest colonial revolt.  That campaign was a little perplexing – too subtle for any remnants of Barton to be in charge, but too direct to be the work of the Winner brood – but it couldn’t last for too much longer before hostilities came to a head.  Peacecraft couldn’t afford to feed his troops for a truly extended campaign while isolated in space and would force the issue soon, if nothing else.  Once he was fully committed there, the primary force of rebels ought to start attempting to disassemble the Regime’s forces on Earth in earnest.  After that, Europe, at least, would be ripe for the plucking.  So they had time. 

            _Nearly a full brigade,_ he estimated, nodding thoughtfully.  Still modest, but a good start – production had only been running at a respectable rate for two months… and this was only one depot. 

            It would do for now. 

-

***

-

**October 26 th 198 – Saturday – Antwerp, Belgium**

            “Are you nervous?” 

            Odin wrinkled his nose, thinking about it, before shaking his head.  “No.  There’s something, but…”  He shook his head; he didn’t know the word for it. 

            Quatre raised his eyebrows, looking skeptical.  “It’s not actually a big deal if nothing comes out of this,” he reminded him. 

            “I know.”  He’d had every intention of doing this eventually anyway, but it hadn’t been relevant until they had started talking about business ventures.  It still didn’t have to be, but...  He _did_ want to know. 

            So he didn’t understand.  _Maybe…_  “It feels big.” 

            The other man’s eyes shone with amusement.  “This, coming from you?” 

            He shrugged, willing to see the humor as well.  “I don’t want to go in before five,” he decided.  The office was closed on Sundays – if he waited until nearly closing today, nothing would be filed until Monday.  If the situation turned on him, he would be happy for the extra response time. 

            Quatre nodded, picking up on what he didn’t say.  “The motto is true, you know.  It’s an all or nothing if you go for it, but if you take a look and don’t like what you find, there won’t be any record of you coming in.” 

            That was a cute idea, but he didn’t believe it.  “Right.” 

            “I’m serious.  I’ve never met her personally, but Delilah Osborne is solid; one of ours.”  The taller man undid the top few buttons of his coat and looked down as he dug into an inside pocket.  “Lance walked in two weeks back.”  He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and dug in his pants pocket for a lighter.  “I can’t find anything that suggests they told anyone he’d come by.” 

            That was new information.  “Is he the only one who tried?”  He hadn’t met Lance yet. 

            Quatre shrugged, flipping his Zippo open and checking to see if it sparked.  “It’s not something I ask,” he admitted.  “He’s the only one who told me about it, though.”  He shut the lighter again and tapped the pack absently against his thigh.  “If you ask me, they’re marketing _for_ Cambyses men, which worried me until I realized who was behind it.” 

            _Interesting._   “Hn.”  He watched him continue to fidget for a long minute before asking, “Are you going to smoke or what?” 

            His friend made a pained sort of noise and jammed the pack and lighter both back into his coat pockets.  “I don’t need it,” he denied.  “My hands just feel empty.” 

            He hadn’t been aware that _need_ had ever had anything to do with the habit.  “Aa.” 

            Quatre groaned again.  “Don’t be like that.” 

            He thought he’d been careful to not express an opinion.  “Does it affect your lung capacity?” he asked curiously. 

            “Probably.”  His tone was… dark.  “I don’t do it enough to have _much_ of an impact, but yes, it does.  Razo used to yell at me for it.” 

            Odin frowned.  There was an idea he hadn’t expected, buried in that statement.  “Did you want me to?” 

            “No.”  The answer was immediate, strong… and then Quatre slumped a little.  “Maybe.”  He sighed.  “No, I don’t.  I just miss Razo.” 

            Considering how close Quatre was with the rest of his people, that made sense.  “He knows you’re alive,” he pointed out. 

            Quatre rubbed at his face.  “Jovi says he still doesn’t have a phone.” 

            “Email?” 

            “Only the one the Regime assigned him when he signed on to stay in the Strike Force.” 

            That made sense, but didn’t mean the other man _wasn’t_ making this more difficult than it had to be for no reason.  This kind of thing was at least part of the reason they’d founded Rubato last month.  “Have Jovi invite him to the social network?”  He tried to remember another name.  “Or Jalee?” 

            “Is it really fair to tug his loyalties around if he wants to go save people with Mitchell?”  He sounded miserable now.  “He can get back to me through the others if he wants to.” 

            Odin resisted the urge to sigh, closing his eyes for a moment instead.  He was done trying.  “What time is it?” 

            “Five to five.” 

            _Good enough._   “I’ll meet you back at the motel.”  He started for the HTD office a few blocks away. 

            Quatre scoffed and followed him.  “Sorry.” 

            “Don’t start that either,” he warned. 

            A more annoyed noise this time, but he didn’t argue.  “Are you okay?” he asked instead. 

            His own annoyance rose.  “I want to know,” he pointed out. 

            “But you also kept putting it off,” he argued. 

            _And I don’t know why._   “It wasn’t important.” 

            “You wouldn’t feel this weird about it if it wasn’t important.” 

            “I don’t feel weird about it.” 

            “You really do, though.” 

            Odin glowered up at his friend.  “Any other insight?” 

            He’d meant it sarcastically, but Quatre only gave him a serious look as they walked.  “You don’t have to go in.” 

            “You want me to.  And it’s a good idea.”  It was worth exploring before they moved on to other avenues, and they’d spent the last month building everything _around this_. 

            “I do,” Quatre admitted.  “But if it’s going to make you feel weird, I have other ideas.” 

            This was getting circular.  “I want to know,” he repeated resolutely.  “The only variable is timeline, and if it’s useful to do it now, there’s no reason not to.”  There were so many questions now, more every week, that he _wanted_ the answers to and had no way of getting – unless he did this.  He’d exhausted all the other options last month. 

            And he didn’t know _why_ this felt strange – it was the obvious solution.  He’d known it since leaving Israel, over a year ago.  He was nearly positive his father had gone to great lengths to _arrange_ this for him, and everything he and Quatre had learned about the History for Tomorrow Database and the Osborne Reunion Foundation had the same feel – as though the system had been designed for _him_ to take advantage of specifically.  It was too perfect. 

            Maybe that was the problem.  It was all too clean, too neat: it felt like a trap.  The last time something had been custom designed for him, it had been while he was with the Barton Foundation, and that….

            _Why is it harder to think about that time now it was six months ago?_   It had happened years ago – nothing about his time preparing for Operation Meteor before or after the retraining had changed, and he didn’t think his perception had either, but… it was harder to think about, now that he had seen how both Marie and Quatre responded to the information.  How Lucrezia reacted to even mild implications of what had made him who he had been when he flew a gundam.  Everyone but Marie had tried to be subtle in their reactions, but he had seen, and that…

            It had twisted something, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it anymore. 

            Quatre sighed.  “If you’re sure.” 

            “I am.”  If nothing else, now that he’d recognized the problem, he wanted nothing more than to remove it.  “I’ll meet you back at the motel.”  If he got made, Quatre didn’t need to be associated with the incident. 

            The office was harder to spot than he had expected.  It was small, with an understated sign and no window:

 

**_ The History for Tomorrow Database _ **

**_No questions_ **

**_No commitments_ **

**_Just answers_ **

 

            The fact that it was only big enough for a wraparound desk was strangely comforting.  Just the basics – nothing to evaluate, no back door to watch… not even a storage closet.  Everything was laid out in the open: two large computer monitors, a handful of types of scanner, a file cabinet, and high-end printer was the extent of it.  He couldn’t find any sign of a camera, and the building was old enough, repurposed from its original use, to have a plaster ceiling instead of a dropped one. 

            There was a small window at the back that he could fit through if it came down to it.  Marie couldn’t, now that her hips had rounded out, but she was still in Russia and he didn’t think he’d have a reason to come back later, so that wasn’t relevant. 

            The girl at the desk smiled at him when he came in – she looked about the same age as Amos, and just as innocent.  _“Hallo,”_ she greeted cheerfully. 

            “Hi,” he returned in English, testing the waters.  He understood Dutch just fine, but speaking it was another matter entirely. 

            “Can I help you?” she asked gamely in English, leaning forward. 

            _No need for small talk, then._   He was all for that.  “I’ve heard you have one of the widest private databases of fingerprints.” 

            She nodded.  “It’s still the most common emergency method to identify lost children,” she agreed.  “Did you have a copy of prints you were hoping to scan for a match?” 

            He forced a tight smile.  “Yeah.  Mine.” 

-

***

-

**October 27 th 198 – Sunday – Zurich, Switzerland**

            “ _Finally_!”  A sharp whistle sounded off to his right, along with a few more cheers, and the woman who had been chatting him up started laughing delightedly as well, twisting on her barstool to look back at the dance floor. 

            Curious, Bruce looked as well.  The source of attention seemed to be a young couple that he’d seen a handful of times throughout the evening already who were evidently having a moment in the middle of the room, trying to kiss each other breathless.  He smirked and settled back on his heels, glancing up and down the bar to make sure no one was trying to get his attention. 

            It was a pretty good crowd tonight, and the flavor of the mood was certainly unique.  Anonymity did odd things to people’s inhibitions at the best of times, but adding it to music and alcohol was another league entirely.  The party had only been going for a handful of hours and the night was still young, but already he was enjoying himself more than usual just from the antics of his patrons…  And that wasn’t even going into the woman in the sexed up Puss in Boots costume that had been trying to make him laugh for the past half hour. 

            All in all, he found himself understanding the appeal of a masquerade ball far more now than when his boss had announced they were going to run one.  Still a hell of a recipe for disaster, but possibly worth it after all. 

            “This round’s on me,” announced the man who had yelled, coming up to the bar with a grin.  “What’ve you got for ten shots that won’t break the bank?” 

            “Can you even _do_ shots in that thing?” asked a woman in oriental-style make-up so heavy and stylized that it worked as a mask.  He hadn’t entirely worked out who she was supposed to be, but he was pretty sure the style of tunic and leggings was authentic Chinese, in direct contrast to the pair of very obviously plastic sabers strapped across each other at the back of her waist. 

            The ‘thing’ in question was the ridiculous Venetian mask the blonde man was wearing with a nose about eight inches long – which he had bumped into just about everything conceivable throughout the night. 

            He scowled at her.  “Once again?  _Not_ my idea.” 

            “When you said you had something to wear,” the green-eyed Phantom of the Opera announced with a smirk as he came to lean on the counter next to him, “we didn’t think you’d confused ‘high-end masquerade’ with ‘lame costume party.’” 

            “We had to improvise,” Puss in Boots informed him sagely, facing the bar again and leaning back in a fluid motion to sip at her drink, causing her skirt to hitch a dangerously high. 

            “And yet none of you will own up to who _owned_ this thing.” 

            “Darling, it’s _art_ ,” purred a woman with an ornate silver eye mask platinum blonde hair that he was mostly sure was a wig, it was so perfectly white, topped with a silver tiara he wasn’t _actually_ sure was costume jewelry.  “You should feel lucky I let them take it off my wall for the cause.” 

            He groaned.  “I should have guessed.”  Facing Puss, he pointedly said, “I still don’t think I deserve this.” 

            “Sweetheart,” she drawled, voice dripping with honey, “you showed up with a bear snuggie.  You can live with the nose of shame.”  Bruce snorted in spite of himself, and the woman winked at him.  Like the Chinese woman, she had chosen make-up over a mask, though a better term might have been face paint – thick, intricate eyeliner extended to the far edges of her face in feline shapes and whiskers were painted across her cheeks.  She had some sort of false nails on, black, long and filed to points to act as claws, but she hadn’t fumbled a glass once so far.  Her long sleeves were the kind that came to a point over the backs of her hands and had a loop to slip over her middle fingers, but didn’t cover her shoulders, instead leaving them bare and only connecting to her corset style top through the armpit. 

            …He might have spent a little too long staring at her already tonight, but she’d also been encouraging it. 

            A redhead in a golden eye mask of a similar style to the platinum blonde and a fanciful golden circlet came up on the other side of Puss.  He’d talked to her a few times tonight, but now, seeing her and the blonde at the same time, he realized that the two costumes must be coordinated somehow.  She rested a hand on one hip of the full, medieval style gown she was wearing and declared.  “That’s it then, so I win.  I demand my dues.” 

            “Hold up,” the Phantom protested.  “That’s debatable, and besides, give everyone time to get here.” 

            “I was closest,” the redhead argued, though she seemed relaxed enough as she leaned over to take a sip of Puss’s drink, humming appreciatively as the other woman let her. 

            “Mu had it for early October,” he insisted.  “You’re the third week of November, and this might be the first time they’ve kissed, but they totally skipped first base and went straight for second last week.” 

            A Roman centurion sitting a ways down the bar minding his own business spat out his water at that, red plume on his helmet swaying as he jerked his head towards them.  “Wait, _what_?” 

            The French courtier sitting next to him, one seat closer to the rest – who had insisted that he was the Count of Monte Cristo to anyone who asked – started laughing hard.  “ _Yeah_ they did.” 

            Puss cackled.  “You caught it on film?” 

            “Had to delete it or I’m pretty sure he would’ve murdered me on the spot,” he confirmed happily.  “It wasn’t even that interesting, honestly, but the man’s a prude.” 

            Eying the blonde man in the fine-pressed mafia pinstripes and fedora currently getting a little handsy with the woman in the steampunk getup on the dance floor, Bruce found that statement a little hard to believe.  _Then again, anonymity,_ he reminded himself.  And he hadn’t served either of them anything tonight, but that didn’t mean Karissa hadn’t, or that none of their apparently large entourage had passed something along.  _Anonymity **plus** liquid courage can do a lot._  

            “And this is all only if we don’t count her sitting on him until he promised to never leave, back in September, as the start of the relationship,” Puss added in a gleeful tone.  “Or the high school nonsense they’ve been up to for the month since.” 

            “She did _what_?” the redhead demanded in a huff, pouting.  “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

            Puss shrugged.  “Waiting for the right moment,” she demurred, looking very pleased with herself. 

            “Or trying to get us to bet more.” 

            Her smirk widened.  “We’ll never know.” 

            “ _Or_ ,” the redhead interjected.  “You’re lying.” 

            Puss smiled deviously, unbothered.  “Ask Leia, if you like.” 

            “How much is in on this, exactly?” the Chinese woman asked.  “All I ever knew was that it got a little ridiculous.” 

            The Count snickered, standing up and coming closer.  “More than a little, I’d say.” 

            “Enough to buy a small car,” the Phantom agreed.  “Nothing too high end, but not a junker either.” 

            The woman arched a nonplussed brow.  “You really _must_ have been desperate.” 

            “Well, a considerable portion came from our two Fairy Queens trying to outdo each other,” Puss added conspiratorially. 

            _Ah._   Bruce supposed he could see that, now that it had been pointed out to him – Summer gold and the red spectrum for the redhead, Winter silver and cool tones for the blonde. 

            “I make it a habit of donating to good causes,” Queen Winter informed them haughtily. 

            “That and if the stakes got high enough, you hoped someone might push the envelope,” the Chinese swashbuckler added dryly. 

            “Multiple attainable goals, my darling pirate, is simply good business sense,” the taller woman returned smugly.  “And as you have won, I hardly think you should complain.” 

            _Chinese pirate._   He was still coming up blank, though he supposed that could count as a costume all on its own.  “Are you folks planning to enter the costume contest?” he asked warmly.  Aside from the Venetian, it looked like they had all put forward a fair amount of effort. 

            The Chinese pirate snorted.  “We showed up with a woman dressed up as a cat in fuck-me boots and a miniskirt.  Is there a point in trying?” 

            “You’re just upset your feet are too small to wear these,” Puss decided, crossing her legs and emphasizing the flash of skin between her thigh high stilettos and pleated skirt, the genuine – and peace-bound with zip-ties because his boss wasn’t a complete moron – rapier hanging from a belt at her waist swaying slightly at the motion. 

            He really needed to stop letting her steal all his attention. 

            “I’m really not,” the other woman argued with a laugh.  “I’m not sure I could spend an _hour_ in those without trying to use them to kill somebody.”  She eyed the other woman’s thighs.  “And I’ve _never_ worn something that short outside a bedroom.” 

            “Suit yourself,” Puss returned smoothly, delicately sipping at her drink again. 

            “Ah, there are different categories,” Bruce explained, tearing his eyes away from the woman again and reminding himself that he was here to _work_.  “Six, and separated for gender.  You can’t win more than one.” 

            “Ooh, I want to stay, then,” the Count decided, looking back to the Centurion.  “Rome?” 

            “I can handle driving,” the other man assured him, holding up his water glass.  “It’s my turn anyhow, right?” 

            “Feeling vain?” Puss teased. 

            “Hey, I let _someone_ ,” he looked pointedly over at Queen Winter, “dress me up like a damn goose for this.  I might as well rock it for all it’s worth.” 

            “You look dashing, darling,” the woman assured him, tapping at the bar to catch Bruce’s attention.  “Another cranberry, please.” 

            “Tame,” Puss pointed out lightly. 

            “I had something earlier,” Winter returned dismissively.  “And I like my wits about me.”  She bumped her hip against the woman standing next to her.  “I’ll have the money transferred to you in the morning, before you head for the spaceport.”  Tipping her head, she added, “I’m not sure there will be much to spend it on, where you’re going, but it’s yours all the same.” 

            “Oh, you’re going to space?” Bruce asked curiously.  “To the army?” 

            She smiled and shook her head.  “Honorable discharge – turns out one of my cousins made it out of Santa Barbara and settled in L5.  Her new husband is willing to vouch for my visa.” 

            “Nice.”  He heard colonial living was almost normal, these days.  And he’d noticed the lack of accent that most western Americans had, but it was rude to ask.  Since she’d as good as said it though – the honorable discharges available for those with surviving colonial family were only offered to Americans – an idea struck him.  “Hey…  What’s your poison?” 

            “Vodka, these days,” she admitted with a grimace.  “Everything else is too expensive.” 

            “But you’re rich tonight,” he reminded her, gesturing back at the rather extensive display of liquors behind him.  “So what do you _like_?” 

            A smile tugged at her painted lips.  “Once upon a time?”  Her mouth widened into a brilliant grin.  “Bourbon.” 

            He nodded at that, taking stock of what they had in house at the moment.  “I have a few of those.”  They were getting more and more rare now, with no one growing corn in a serious way, but a couple of distilleries in Africa had been making a stab at it, according to rumors.  “American?” 

            “Honey,” the woman drawled.  “It’s not bourbon if it didn’t come out of Kentucky.” 

            “Get a room!” someone called laughingly. 

            “And that’s my cue,” the Centurion decided, standing and settling his plastic armor.  “I’m going to go play getaway driver.”  He gestured at the Count.  “Keys.” 

            “Hey, they’re back to just dancing again,” the Phantom argued, watching over one shoulder.  “Don’t hustle them out yet if they want to stay longer.”  He gestured at the other man.  “And stop acting like you don’t know us; sit a little closer.” 

            “Additionally,” Queen Winter pointed out, “We _can_ order a cab for the lovebirds.  Or Mars.  So you can have a drink, if you like.” 

            “Especially if Cheng Shih here is actually buying and willing to share rare whiskey,” the Venetian added.  “I know you’ve still got a bottle of Sinatra Jack Daniels stashed somewhere.” 

            “That’s for if my sister or I ever get married,” the Centurion argued immediately.  “Though if neither of us have when she’s thirty-eight, I’m allowed to sell it.” 

            “That’s oddly specific,” the Phantom commented. 

            “Moretti family tradition,” the man explained.  “And we made a deal.” 

            “If you really never meant to drink it, you’d leave it with your mom,” the Venetian protested. 

            “My mom is _not_ a Moretti and doesn’t understand.” 

            “…This is one of those frat house pacts you two made while drunk out of your minds, isn’t it?” 

            “I plead the fifth.” 

            “Go Buckeyes!” 

            “Oh, shut up.” 

            “I think,” the Chinese woman – Cheng Shih, he was going to have to look that up before the contest – announced loudly.  “That we have all suffered waiting for this.  So.”  She turned bright eyes back on Bruce.  “I don’t suppose you have a bottle of Mitcher’s stashed away that will cost me less than a not junker car?” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            _“You had better either desperately need me, or be ready to grovel.”_  

            “Ah…  A little of both?” Adam offered tentatively, walking into the garage portion of the little house Duo ran his business out of.  “Odin already lectured me, among others, if that helps.” 

            Hilde groaned, and he heard springs squeak as she apparently sat up in bed.  _“Where are you?”_  

            “It’s not urgent,” he admitted quickly.  “But it would be cool if you could head this way tomorrow.” 

            _“Yeah, but where?”_  

            “Amsterdam.” 

            _“…Oh.”_   Another sound of springs – maybe she’d dropped back down on the mattress?  _“You really did get lectured, then.”_  

            “Both angry and educational,” he agreed.  “Figured I’d stay the rest of the week for more of the latter, though, and thought you might be interested too.” 

            _“Well, it’s as good an excuse as any, though I’ll need to check over my shit to see if I actually **can** ,”_ she allowed.  _“Just…”  She huffed out a deep sigh.  “What the **fuck** , man?  Seriously?”_ 

            “I’m going to claim blind panic,” he decided tiredly, considering the car parked in the garage for a long moment before opening the door on the passenger side and climbing in.  Everyone had already gone back to the Devils’ Den for the night, so he didn’t need the privacy, but this seemed… safer.  “I can’t really tell you what I was thinking, because I’m not sure I _was_.”  He licked his lips.  “I am sorry, though.” 

            She sighed again, though less explosively this time.  _“Yeah, whatever… **Odin** lectured you?”_  

            “Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.  He says he was with your CO when you called in.  I didn’t think he was working with you guys.” 

            Hilde groaned.  _“He’s not, mostly?  Like, he does us favors sometimes, or asks for them, but he’s not really **with** us either.  More than you, I guess, but I’m pretty sure that’s only because he’s sleeping with my boss.”_  

            _Huh_.  “He is?” 

            She yawned.  _“Yeah, well, I’m mostly sure he is, at least.  Lou doesn’t kiss and tell, so I can’t be one hundred percent, but they’re giving off all the signs.”_  

            _Lou?_   That could be a name, or short for practically anything.  Hilde had refrained from ever giving him a name for her General before this – even a gender.  And the name didn’t ring any bells – not that that meant anything, with his memory.  “What signs?” he asked instead, because nothing had stood out about Odin while he’d still been in town. 

            _“Ugh, never mind, you’ll get it once see them in the same room.  Look, I’m half asleep; can I call you back in the morning?”_  

            “Sure,” he agreed.  Biting down on his lip, he added, “I _am_ sorry.” 

            _“Yeah, sure you are,”_ she returned in a grumpy tone.  _“Tell me again tomorrow.”_   The line disconnected. 

            _Well, it’s a start._  

-

***

-

**October 28 th 198 – Monday – Zurich, Switzerland**

            Jake blinked awake, disoriented.  It was later than he usually got up, and he frowned at the unfamiliar ceiling over him before registering the weight against his chest and arm- then sucked in a deep breath as he _remembered_. 

            Relena, snuggled tightly against his side with her head pillowed in the curve of his shoulder, was more beautiful than ever.  Still sound asleep, her lips were curved in a gentle smile – good dreams, he supposed.  She was still wearing her jewelry from last night – earrings he’d given her for her birthday and a bracelet from after they’d come back from space, her neck bare except for marks he’d managed to make on it last night. 

            He swallowed hard; he was going to have to start being more careful of that.  He hadn’t thought he’d been rough, but he didn’t exactly have the experience to know how much delicacy was required.  He’d been following Lena’s cues more than anything, and while that made a _fantastic_ guideline he was more than happy to follow, she was still royalty and appearances had to be kept. 

            Though, knowing Dorothy and Mai, they had probably already bought appropriate make-up for until he could figure out the details.  God help him but he was resigned to the two of them meddling for the rest of his life now, so he might as well take solace in the helpfulness he’d traded his privacy in for by falling in love with a princess.  He’d just about _died_ when Mai conversationally informed him that she’d put Relena on birth control before they’d left to pick up Leia – apparently telling her it was one of the required new vaccinations for entering colonial territory.  

            He was starting to get intimately familiar with the sensation of wanting to simultaneously throw up at the exposure while being grateful for the forethought.  That…  For all that it proved unnecessary because he _had_ self-control, damn it, a lapse there would have been the last thing they needed right now.  Major Marakesh had a talent for thinking ahead and laying heavy foundations for the future, and she had more than lived up to her reputation – on _all_ accounts, for better or worse – since coming on board.  The fact that it was literally impossible to embarrass the woman meant that she handled delicate matters with the aplomb of a seasoned nurse – blunt, manipulative, overwhelmingly practical, and competent in a way that terrified most men into immediate obedience.  Then Lin’s seeming immunity to her particular brand of bullshit made them complement each other in a way that couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planned it. 

            Ghosting his free hand over Relena’s cheek, he felt like his heart was doing something dangerously acrobatic.  He’d built a good team to protect her… to protect them, protect _this_ , and he was proud of that, but _this_ …  He still didn’t understand the scope of everything he felt for Relena, and he wasn’t sure he was ever going to. 

            Maybe he wasn’t supposed to – that was at least part of the definition, wasn’t it?  He’d believed in things, wanted them enough to put his life on the line before in the absolute way that meant he’d done little more than blink as death scraped past him by an inch, but _this_ … 

            It was one thing to be willing to die for something, but another entirely, he realized, to be willing to do anything at all to _live_ for it. 

            He ran a hand over her hair, wanting to twine it through his fingers, but they’d found out the annoying way that the hair spray Olivia had used to keep the spiraling curls they had styled it into made for a nasty tangle.  It was still a little too much like petting her, though, so on the second sweep he dragged his nails lightly along her scalp – she made a happy little noise and nuzzled at his shoulder like a cat, shifting legs that were half wrapped around his own. 

            _I’m going to enjoy getting used to this._   Craning his neck for the right angle, he tipped her head a little to kiss her.  They’d both honestly been too pent up, too frantic last night to really consider technique, but he tried now, pulling gently at her lower lip and licking into the seam of her mouth until she started to sleepily respond, shifting her weight and leaning into it, pressing a hand to his jaw and pulling him back when he tried to retreat.  The smell of her was overpowering, rain and something soft and sweet, maybe floral, the same as it had ever been but _more_ , and it was addicting as fuck. 

            No wonder people had always talked about kissing like it was some kind of end all.  It had always seemed like an arbitrary bit of romantic drivel, but now that he’d _done_ it?  _Wow._  

            “Good morning,” she breathed against his lips, eyes still hazy with sleep, but lazily satisfied in a way he’d ever seen before. 

            Taking the chance to catch his breath, he slid one hand down her side underneath the blankets, trailing down her hip and thigh before tracing back up to rest a palm against the small of her back as he shifted onto his side.  “That it is,” he agreed quietly, bringing her flush up against him before he dove into her mouth again, body thrumming with the way she arched against him, one hand buried in his hair and the other arm wrapping low around his waist as she drove their hips together.  She giggled at him when he gasped, doing it again so he growled- 

            His cell phone rang – generic tune, not someone in his contacts. 

            “Don’t you dare answer that,” she ordered, tugging at him so he rolled on top of her, throwing the blankets back. 

            “As you command,” Jake returned, drinking in the sight of her, running his thumbs along the dips in her pelvis so she shivered.  It wasn’t like he’d intended to do anything different, but something in him thrilled at being given the order.  He grinned, lowering his mouth to her belly, suppressing a chuckle as a shudder wracked through his princess’ body.  He didn’t have anything that could go critical on the boil right now. 

            They could leave a message – he was busy. 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reunions! Revelations! Jake is going to sit and listen to that voicemail something like five times in a row before he really registers it, for the record. When he gets around to checking his voicemail. Because he and Relena are technically off the map for another two days, and he might just not come up for air until then. 
> 
> Trying to write all of Relena’s people in one place at one time is seriously like herding cats, people, without even getting into the subject matter. They’re kinda fantastic, but keeping them on task while still talking is exhausting. Writing the gundam boys actually interacting with each other again also leaves me feeling all boss, because really, badassery just abounds. Otherwise, Jake is finally over his shit, Odin is acknowledging he has shit to get over (maybe?), Duo’s sorta accidentally taking over a country’s underworld, and Marie is unintentionally intimidating people. Also, some maybe ominous stuff going on in the background. 
> 
> I’m curious, though, if anyone noticed that Jake’s issues with Jack were largely him being psychotic rather than valid, before this chapter. Was kinda running a writing experiment to see if using the twisted perspective of a trusted character could make someone who’s honestly just sane and responsible seem like a total asshole – helped along by the fact that he’s human and has a temper and Jake knows exactly how to push his buttons. If you realized before having it spelled out for you, I suppose the next question is when. Because however much affection Jake and “Junior” hold for the late Odin Lowe, their childhood… was some really fucked up shit. Should be fun to see if, after getting over the “holy shit, he’s alive” they fall into a panic of “oh fuck, he’s not a murdering sociopath, is he?” 
> 
> …Crap, now I need to start editing the next one. Please say something?


	18. Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solving your problems has a way of opening you up to all new ones. In the aftermath of big revelations, literally everyone but the usual suspect (Jake) freaks out - but the more things change, the more they stay the same too. Des browbeats everyone into getting over themselves, Marie makes more friends, space battles abound, and there's something ominous creeping in the background. 
> 
> Also, Odin might be having a little too much fun trolling people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Edit:-  
> A lot of formatting issues got steamrolled out with this one, as well as type and grammar fixes; starting to have multilingual conversations in here and it just… gets complicated. This one, despite being even longer than the last (though not by much) flows well, and wasn’t really a candidate for a split.  
> Sorry about the delay. The last couple weeks got, uh… interesting. Let’s just go with interesting. Lots of stress, and a lot of good, but it tossed the edit on the backburner. Back now, and we only have one more chapter of the old stuff before we’re back to this being an active work in progress, which is exciting as hell. 
> 
>  
> 
> \---  
> Old note:  
> \---  
> Here we are again!  
> So when I started up this chapter, I had a plan. It was long, complicated, and detailed – super organized and everything. I impressed both my betas with it, and we were all really excited.  
> I got halfway through the outline and found myself staring at 48 pages. FML. Because seriously, again?  
> There were a couple weeks of denial and thinking it would cool down and go faster, but eventually I caved and admitted it had to be split… and this was suddenly the ‘Secret’s Out!” chapter instead of “Ignition Sequence”, and I was like, “Well, okay, so now I have to transition this into the action of what was originally supposed to be the second half before it can post” and added a handful of scenes.  
> 14 pages later… *sighs* I give up. Apparently they’re all just going to be monsters from now on. But hey, 5-6 weeks for turnaround is better than it had been, right? Plus beta time, because this was a real beast for them too. And it’s still a 62 page chapter that runs over 37k words and has some pretty fantastic lines and revelations. I hope you enjoy it – please let me know what you think. It’s pretty obvious by now that you’re getting the next part no matter what you do, but feedback does spur the muses into overdrive.

**_-_ **

**_ Disclosure _ **

_\--_

_Alternate chapter title:_

**_ Trolling for Truth _ **

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**October 28 th 198 – Monday – Antwerp, Belgium**

            “Ah, no,” Quatre dismissed, taking the folder from the man and moving back to his seat.  “If you could give us maybe half an hour I’ll likely have questions by then, but I’d like to look over my client’s current portfolio before discussing options.” 

            “Of course,” the bank attendant agreed quickly.  “Is there anything I can get for you gentleman in the meantime?” 

            “Coffee would be nice,” Quatre admitted in a distracted way, opening the thick file as he sat back down at the head of the table.  “Two cream, no sugar.  Odin?” 

            “Coffee,” he agreed, turning away from the fire and taking the chair to Quatre’s left.  “No cream.  Sweet – any flavors are good.”  He hadn’t had one of the flavored syrups he didn’t like yet, and it seemed like everyone had them. 

            “Of course!  I know just the place.” 

            Quatre snorted once the door had shut behind him.  “I thought he’d grab something from the employee lounge – now I’m almost afraid of what he’ll come back with.” 

            “There’s a coffeehouse two shops over; most of the employees we passed had something with their logo on it.” 

            “Ah, I missed that,” his friend admitted, frowning down at the paper and flipping a page before raising his brows.  “Huh.” 

            “What?” 

            “Give me a minute; I want to be sure I’m actually reading this right.”  His frown deepened.  “Actually, give me a pen and my notebook?”  He flipped another page, skimmed it quickly, then two more.  “I want to run some shorthand.” 

            Odin shrugged and opened the professional-looking leather satchel they’d brought.  It wasn’t a very useful bag – the depth was impractical and seams didn’t look like they would support much weight – but he’d dismissed it as a prop when they’d decided to introduce Cat as his lawyer.  Though with the way it was carefully packed with odds and ends he knew only saw occasional use, and the way the pen loops were creased with age, he was starting to think the other man might be genuinely attached to it.  Shaking his head, he pulled out the notebook and one of the more battered pens, flipping to a fresh page before passing them over; Quatre took them and started writing without looking up. 

            While he waited, he eyed the room they had been ushered into after he’d presented his new identification and reluctantly allowed them to both swab the inside of his cheek and prick his arm.  He’d watched them run the tests and immediately destroy the samples, and been able to confirm that the profile they were comparing him against wasn’t identical, but evidently close enough to confirm who he said he was.  _Kin.  Odin?  Or someone else?_   That… 

            HTD had said he had other surviving kin, but he hadn’t opened that file yet.  Odin had _said_ he would be alone. 

            _Jack Odin Lowe.  Born August 11 th 179._  Marie’s suggested birthday for him was remarkably close – only six days later – but while he hadn’t been sure he had the birth year right… he’d assumed he was _younger_ , not a year older.  His mother’s name had been Rhea, and their guess had been right there, too – HTD had been able to pull up a copy of her death certificate, and it had the same date. 

            He was, technically, a citizen of Earth – he’d been born in California, San Francisco.  The office had immediately offered to file the paperwork so he could retain dual citizenship, given his cover – taken in by Cerise and Keilan Burton of L1 in 190, four years after they had adopted a newborn girl they named Audi.  Quatre had built a believable trail to support the story, including his reappearance with Audi two years after the couple’s death – when, by L1 law, he would have barely been old enough to assume legal custody of his sister. 

            Instead of drawing out a proper timeline, they had shown glimmers of the skills that anyone who might remember him from his childhood might know about, going so far as to include details suggesting they had been in places that Heero _had_ been during the war; they even implied that he had briefly hired on with the mercenary company he had later become the sole survivor of.  According to this, his leg injury had occurred with suspiciously close timing to shadier bank deposits there, though the official story was again a car accident.  Quatre had amused himself by adding the two of them to the list of those who had gone to Sanc seeking asylum from the wars after his crippling injury, and supplied evidence that they had stayed on Earth after the Fall despite colonial citizenship to continue his rehab in full gravity – allowing it to heal better, more strongly, than if they’d returned to space. 

            _‘Give them something to ‘discover’ you’re hiding behind enough resistance, and they will pat themselves on the back and stop looking for anything deeper,’_ his friend had explained.  _‘If a seasoned trauma physician sees your leg he will almost certainly **know** those scars are from a mobile suit injury; better to treat this as an opportunity to flesh out your subterfuge and make this feel real than risk being caught in a lie you haven’t prepared.’_  

            In truth, the Burton family of three had disappeared while on a vacation in L2 in the summer of 192, with credit card transactions indicating they had been within the blast radius of a ‘terrorist bombing’ that had almost certainly been an Alliance hit on a political dissident… 

            He wondered how much of the current string of bombings were the same kind of maneuver.  The second profile, he was nearly certain, was an agent of Romefeller.  _The first, though…_   Well, that was the reason he supposed Duo was intent on expanding his influence.  What he was developing would give him advance warning, which he insisted was the purpose, but, well… 

            Duo had always been good at believing whatever he wanted.  Good at convincing others to go along with it too – he was honestly a little curious to see what would happen if he just stood back and let the other man work. 

            The little conference room they sat in was only meant for perhaps five people at the most, and was more… _Romefeller_ , he supposed, than most of the bank.  He was enjoying how comfortable his chair was, but it was practically an armchair – at a table clearly meant for meetings.  The wood was an unusual grain too, rippled in a way he hadn’t seen before, colored an unusual shade of red he thought might be natural.  There were no windows – they were deep in the interior of the building – but a small fireplace was set into the wall behind Quatre with an overly detailed stonework mantle.  A painting sat above it, a portrait of someone he didn’t recognize – likely a founder of the bank instead of a political statement – in a gilded frame, and there was another hung on the wall across him.  Some sort of country landscape – maybe someone thought it was soothing?  A large, plush rug covered most of the tile floor that he had seen throughout the rest of the bank, and the walls met the ceiling in a series of curved arches that continued in a nonsensical pattern dotted with more paintings overhead.  All genuine paint, not prints, and a small but genuine crystal chandelier hung over them, panes sending prisms spiraling across the room’s shadows as the fire flickered. 

            He hadn’t been expecting _this_ , exactly, but he wasn’t stupid – he had a pretty good idea as to why Quatre was taking so long to summarize the holdings of the accounts that Odin had left for him. 

            The number of digits in the account HTD had directed him at had been impressive enough, but after arriving at the bank they’d learned that it was apparently only an intermediary between stock and multiple other long-term high-yield interest accounts that, when reaching a certain limit, had funds funneled back into buying more stock and increasing the overall passive income.  Also, that it was only one of several such accounts serving the same purpose. 

            The concepts were easy enough, but when they had started talking about investments, he was glad Quatre had insisted on coming – his only experience with large amounts of funds had to do with laundering, and it was frustrating to realize how much of the vocabulary was new.  

            Yet another thing he hadn’t known _existed_ , let alone understood, after his time under Dr J.  The more time that went by, the more he realized just how much of a cocky shit he’d been when he was fifteen. 

            _Fifteen.  I really **was** fifteen when I fell to Earth._   Sixteen by the time he fell again with _Libra_ and Quatre had dragged him out of Wing Zero’s cockpit and helped him set off the self-destruct sequence, seventeen when he’d started putting himself back together in Jerusalem, eighteen when he’d begun teaching Marie to shoot…  Nineteen when Lucrezia had taken him out for drinks before they headed for South America. 

            It was a small detail, and one that shouldn’t have mattered, but…  It felt like it did?  He wasn’t sure what to do with it, and it made him disinterested in the prospect of opening the large electronic file HTD had offered him for his known history before his disappearance. 

            Because he’d been _nine_ , not seven or eight, when Dr J recruited him into the Barton Foundation and he hadn’t been able to think of a reason to say no – he’d been nine years old, and hadn’t really thought he had a _name_. 

            He’d… said yes to J because he hadn’t been able to think of _anything better to do_. 

            But HTD said he had surviving kin.  Odin had apparently gone to great lengths to set him up financially despite abandoning him.  If he had followed his father’s advice and stayed, tried to blend into society on L3-X18999 instead of taking matters into his own hands, what would have happened?  Had there been other contingency plans in place that he had never considered? 

            _…Would someone have taken me up the way I did Marie?  With **care** , instead of turning me into a tool?  _

            The idea made his stomach twist.  He didn’t want to think about it. 

            He only had… maybe three years of memory, from before Odin died?  Truthfully, even that was a generous estimate. 

            Quatre had said something before about trauma – had grown uncharacteristically still when he admitted to actively trying to forget the retraining.  He’d delicately suggested that repressing memory might be a method that had worked successfully in response to something else when he was young…  But the lack of information tangled everything else in his mind in _insane_ ways, made him doubt himself because he didn’t know _why_. 

            _But what if it was better to forget?_   It wasn’t that he didn’t _remember_ the retraining, exactly – he still knew what had happened, he just… didn’t remember it _happening_ anymore.  He could lay out the events clinically, but it was as though he’d watched a vid on the subject or read the reports; he couldn’t _remember_ it anymore.  Not without effort, at least, and the last time he had, well… 

            He’d wondered if slipping the chute bag off his back would make the weightless freefall last any longer, feel any freer. 

            He’d been relieved at the excuse Dr J was giving him to hit the button, and… dismayed at how much _less_ it had hurt to land, skin searing but wet and clammy as he bled out, than it had to have his shoulders dislocated and head slammed into a wall a few times. 

            It… hadn’t been fair.  What had been the point, if it was so much easier to just die? 

            He hadn’t started to realize that ‘retraining’ was just a word for ‘systematic desensitization via torture’ until Marie had asked him how he’d gotten his reflexes so fast, and he realized that he didn’t _want_ to tell her it was because burns hurt.  Most of his injuries hadn’t left permanent damage – his medical care had only been the best, to keep him in the best pre-mission condition- 

            He’d shrugged and told her something about practice that she’d nodded at seriously and taken to heart. 

            _Better, that way._   He didn’t care if the retraining _had_ conditioned him in a way that had allowed him to endure Operation M and the war that came after, if it _had_ been the deciding factor in his survival – if anyone threatened Marie with even a _fraction_ of what Dr J had put him through, he would kill them. 

            Without regret. 

            The affirmation was soothing in a way he couldn’t explain. 

            _Follow your emotions._   Maybe by focusing on what he _could_ change, what he _could_ prevent and protect, the past would become less… disturbing.  Maybe he hadn’t let himself feel so he could get through it, but now that he could again, that didn’t mean he _had_ to – he could just keep moving forward like always, and look back on what he hadn’t had the power to change with the knowledge that he had done the best he could, and do better in what came next? 

            “Odin?” 

            “Mm?”  He’d been staring at the refractions in the panes of crystal, he realized. 

            “Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re going to do that, get my damn gum out of the zipper pocket,” Quatre grit out. 

            _What?_   He reached for the bag and found the packet, considering the label as he handed it over.  “Nicotine?” 

            “It dampens things,” his friend returned vaguely, popping three pieces out of the foil without ceremony and starting to chew.  “Smoking’s better, probably to do with saturation, but I can’t do that in here.”  He sighed deeply and looked up, meeting his eyes with deep concern.  “Are you okay?” 

            _…What?_   “Yes?”  He was missing something. 

            Quatre’s features relaxed a little.  “What were you thinking about?” 

            He frowned.  “Why?” 

            “Because you were just-”  Quatre’s eyes narrowed.  “You… don’t know.  Do you?” 

            “Know what?”  He was going to have to be more specific.  Quatre was _reacting_ to something.  _‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re going to do that-’_  “What did I do?” 

            “I…”  He looked stunned now, and almost like he wanted to start laughing.  “Wow, you really…?  Ah.  I’ll tell you later, I guess.  I just… thought you knew.  You’ve always acted like you did.” 

            _...Well, **that** was enlightening._   How did people use so many words without saying _anything_ at the same time? 

            Quatre barked out an abrupt, bright laugh.  “Wow.  Ah…”  He chewed a few more times before clearing his throat and gesturing at the papers in front of him.  “This is really impressive.” 

            “I was getting that,” Odin agreed, shifting closer to try reading what the other man had written. 

            “The account manager has taken good care of…  Well, I guess it’s your inheritance,” Quatre continued.  “Exceptionally good care, actually, to the point where it’s suspicious and we might want to dig up what we can find on him later.  But either way, the only recommendation I have short-term is to liquidate one of the CD accounts that’s up for review – it’s not one of the more impressive ones anyway – then start rearranging the active accounts the same way we had been everything of mine.  We should have the original accounts closed once we transfer all the rights to new ones today to make sure the old manager doesn’t have access anymore but…”  He shook his head.  “You’re…”  He let out a helpless sort of giggle.  “Financially?  You’re basically Winner Corp.” 

            _Huh._   That was a much more generous estimate than they’d anticipated, but at least it was in the realm of what Quatre was used to working with.  “So not bad.” 

            “You’re not following,” Quatre insisted, voice lowering.  “Before the Fall, the Winner Corp. was a conglomeration of businesses spanning across generations, both in space and a good portion of France and Africa, mostly focused in engineering and resource mining.  The Winner _family_ only held the controlling interest of the company due to majority shares and the original charter which included a primogeniture inheritance clause.”  He paused for emphasis, tapping the expensive table with one finger.  “ _You_ are now equivalent to the Winner _Corporation_.”  His lips twitched in an involuntary sort of smile.  “So, maybe the Barton Foundation is a closer comparison.” 

            The Barton Foundation had funded Operation Meteor – all the gundams from inception to launch – in its entirely.  “Really.” 

            Quatre still looked like he was fighting laughter as he nodded slowly.  “You know how we were talking about the possibility of buying and diversifying a major airline carrier or shipping company?” 

            Building a support network to move people and supplies easily around multiple continents abruptly climbed to the top of their list of goals once he’d gotten Melissa’s distress call.  So far, they had been using the money Quatre had been able to drain from various old accounts he’d had before the war on a mix of public real estate and business interests to help cover his men from Cambyses.  They had been discussing alternate means of revenue, but once Odin had admitted that he was relatively sure he’d inherited something at least somewhat substantial, it had made sense to take that into consideration first.  Ideally, they would be able to obtain decent access to if not outright ownership of a transport company or two and enough funding to apply towards rebuilding at least one additional gundam, since things were moving back in the direction of MS battle.  Lucrezia was limited by both her man and firepower – if he could back her on the field- 

            “You already own eighty percent of Knightly Interstellar,” Quatre informed him bluntly.  “And sixty of Hideki Robotics, and are a major silent partner in-”  He gestured jerkily over the file in front of him.  “I’m not nearly done reading through this yet, but it’s about as insane as your usual run of things, okay?” 

            Odin laughed.  He really shouldn’t be surprised, but…  Well, it was all good news.  They could…  “Sky is the limit, then?” 

            His friend smirked, turning back to the papers.  “No reason to stop there,” he returned as he picked his pen back up.  “The account manager though, Jacob Miller – we need to look into him.  This is beautifully crafted, incredibly diverse, and frankly so squeaky clean that I’m not sure it’s possible for him to not intimately know exactly where to _avoid_ dirty business.  I’ve had the file for less than ten minutes, and already it seems a little too good to be true.” 

            Quatre pursed his lips, then stood up and reached across the table for the memo pad with the bank’s logo embossed at the top that had been left there.  “Here,” muttered, sliding his notebook back towards Odin.  “I’ll explain once we’re somewhere secure, but for now I need you to focus on something.  Start up a wish list, or draw diagrams, an idea map, write poetry, it doesn’t matter, just… focus on something for me.” 

            He didn’t seem to notice that he’d given him the pen back as well, but was already focused on the file again, eyes darting from line to line, absently tapping at the pad with one finger in thought.  “Poetry.” 

            “You’re young and in love,” Quatre returned in a distracted tone, eyes never stopping as he turned another page.  “Pretty sure that’s the starting requirement.” 

            He fought the urge to snicker.  “I can’t write an _essay_ properly.” 

            “No?” 

            “Not with a passing score.  Audi’s…”  They didn’t know if there was any surveillance here.  “I don’t explain things well.  Something about sentence structure.  Audi says it’s weird.”  Leia had tried to explain a lot more, but he still didn’t see what the problem was.  He got the point across. 

            “I don’t think English is your first language; that’s probably why.” 

            “It’s my primary language,” he pointed out, curious to see if the other man’s focus would shift if they kept this up. 

            “And before Odin died, what did you speak?” 

            “It was location dependent.” 

            “So what did you speak when it was just the two of you?” 

            “…It was location dependent,” he repeated, more slowly this time. 

            Quatre tsked at him, flipping another page.  “And when you went somewhere with a language you didn’t know?” 

            “I couldn’t talk until I did.” 

            He stopped and looked back up at him, eyes narrowed.  “What?” 

            “Until I understood what I was hearing enough to say it back, I wasn’t allowed to talk.” 

            “So, what, if you tried anyway he just…?” 

            He didn’t remember ever trying anyway, but it had probably happened at some point.  “Pretended he didn’t understand, I think.”  He tipped his head to one side, thinking back.  “The longest I ever remember it taking was three weeks.” 

            But… back to the issue of just how much memory was _missing_. 

            “The longest you-  How many languages do you speak?” 

            That wasn’t accurate.  “I know more than I can speak,” he pointed out quickly. 

            “Well, that’s the first step in learning, so yes, okay, but how many?” Quatre demanded. 

            He…  “Do dialects count?”  Quatre opened his mouth, and another thought occurred to him.  “What makes them different from each other?  Where’s the defining line?”  That was something that had always bothered him. 

            “…I have literally no idea how to answer that.  How many do you understand?” 

            It…  “I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve found one I didn’t,” he admitted. 

            Quatre’s expression was a mix of incredulous and… something like when he impressed Marie.  “You’re kidding me.” 

            “I don’t know where I haven’t been,” he found himself defending quickly.  There were _holes_ in his memory, he was almost two years older than he’d realistically guessed, and he didn’t _know_ , but there had to be places he’d never been to. 

            He just… didn’t know where they were. 

            Quatre groaned, dropping his face heavily in his hands.  “Oh my fucking…  You’re serious.” 

            “I can’t _speak_ most of them,” he added.  “Or read.”  He was illiterate for anything with Gaelic, Arabic, or Asian roots, aside from Japanese.  Cyrillic, he could mostly make out – well, Russian, at least.  It still took him too long to be of much use, though.  Most of the time it was easier to just snap a picture and use a text to speech program. 

            “I’m not sure if I’m impressed or disgusted,” Quatre grumbled, face still covered.  “That’s… so _slapdash_.” 

            “Effective, though.”  Odin shrugged, looking down to the notebook and flipping to a fresh page.  “What’s the point of poetry, anyway?”  Marie didn’t get it either. 

            Quatre sighed, dropping his eyes and focusing on the file again.  “‘Anything too stupid to be said is sung,’” he announced, sounding like he was quoting someone.  “It’s artistic license to articulate yourself poorly and call it beauty.” 

            _Huh.  Songs **are** poetry, aren’t they?_   He grinned, considering what else he’d said.  “I’m young and in love?” 

            “Something like that,” the other man grumbled.  “I don’t know.  Shut up, please.” 

            He grinned broadly enough that his face ached – he’d been wondering how long Quatre would tolerate banter.  He didn’t seem to have noticed the lack of a pen yet, but he was reading too fast now to really take notes…  And Quatre generally only took notes out of habit, not need.  He wasn’t sure if _he_ had noticed that yet, though, so… 

            He shrugged and considered the blank page.  It had been a while since he had seen a rendering of Wing Zero’s fusion reactor; he wondered how much of it he could call up from memory. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – Airport**

            “I still can’t believe you actually watch that crap,” Priya groused.  “It’s…”  She stopped, realizing Taylor wasn’t next to her anymore, and spun.  “Tay?”  She couldn’t see him anywhere, and her stomach dropped.  “Tay!” 

            “Just… a minute…” 

            His voice was weak, but she could see a disturbance in the crowd now and she dropped her carryon to dart for it, shoving people aside as she went.  _Fuck._   She didn’t think Tay had had an attack like this in years, and with the delays they’d had to deal with due to the Regime’s new blockades, they’d only _just_ gotten to Earth.  Freddy was so damn protective of him for a reason.  “ _Move_!” she snarled at someone who wasn’t getting the hint, throwing her weight into it – not that it meant much, she was _not_ a big person, damn it all – and stumbled to her knees as she broke through the instinctive little circle of gawkers next to the older boy.  “Tay?” 

            He looked a little dazed, but despite how zoned out his eyes were as he stared up at the ceiling, he halfheartedly smacked at her hand when she reached to check his pulse.  “Just give me a minute,” he grumbled.  “’S fine, just… whoa.”  He reached up with one hand to shove his hair out of his face.  “That’s new…” 

            “Is everything alright here?” 

            Priya looked up at the security guard with wide eyes, scrambling for an excuse, trying to remember what Courtney had said the last time this happened while she visited- 

            “Yeah, ah…”  Taylor swallowed, blinking a few times and focusing up at the man.  “I think…  Blood sugar?”  He looked back to Priya, and the bright intelligence normally in his brown eyes was back, along with a hint of mischief.  “When was the last time I checked my sugar?  With the time change, I think, maybe…?” 

            The little shit was conning her out of the last Sonic, apparently.  He was such a sore fucking loser – it wasn’t like they couldn’t get more, but he’d _lost_ the last hand on the shuttle and it was technically hers.  “Oh my _God_ , you didn’t-” she huffed out half tearfully as she tugged her knapsack off her shoulder and ripped it open, digging for the energy drink she’d won off him fair and square.  “I can’t _believe_ you,” she wailed for the benefit of the crowd as she popped it open and shifted to get an arm under his shoulders and help him sit up so he could drink.  She’d planned to pinch him while she was at it, but the way he immediately slurped at the rim before he was fully upright, settling back on one elbow instead and squeezing his eyes shut as though disoriented made her debate how much of this was _actually_ an act. 

            His hand shook as he reached up to stabilize the can and take a larger gulp.  “Sorry,” he muttered under his breath.  “I got it.” 

            She ignored him and kept holding the drink, shifting onto her butt and pulling him half into her lap, one leg behind his back.  “You’re freaking me out, here.” 

            Tay gusted out a sigh and dropped his head down on her thigh, blinking his eyes back open.  “Sorry,” he repeated at a more normal volume.  “I just need a minute, then we can get out of here.” 

            The airport security guard looked relieved, but half like he wanted to argue at the same time.  “You sure?  I can get a paramedic over here pretty quick.” 

            Tay made a face.  “Nah, I know what happened; I just got stupid,” he insisted.  “I’ve had this my whole life, you know?”  He offered the man a self-deprecating smile, relaxing more fully against Priya.  “Just got excited and lost track of time.”  Puffing out another breath, he reached for the drink again, and she helped him take a more controlled sip this time. 

            She felt the guard’s eyes tracing over them, taking in Taylor’s white blonde hair and alabaster skin, so much paler than her own.  “First time to Earth?” 

            He snorted.  “That obvious, huh?” 

            The guard shrugged, squatting down next to them – probably so they’d feel a little bit less like he was looming.  “The gravity change might be a part of this too,” he offered.  “We see this sometimes; it can do tricky things to your blood pressure until you’re used to it.” 

            They’d known that, but he’d seemed fine after they had landed, and she’d made him sit down once they were out of shuttle for a few minutes, then window shop with her for another ten before they’d made their way over to customs.  He’d been breathing a little harder than usual, but that was part of the normal acclimation period. 

            “Alright,” Tay agreed, nodding and sitting up a little more, hands on the ground behind him.  “Thanks.” 

            The man frowned.  “You’re _sure_ you don’t want me to get someone?  It’s not a big deal.” 

            “I’m good,” Tay insisted firmly.  “The soda will cover me until we can get something to eat, I’ll check my levels…”  He offered him another self-deprecating smile.  “I know the drill.  Sorry for the fuss.” 

            Priya grimaced.  “Are you okay for a minute?” she asked.  “You scared the crap out of me; I have to go get my bag.” 

            “Let me,” the guard offered immediately, standing again.  “What color is it?” 

            She made a face.  “Black,” she admitted.  “Wheeled.  It has my tags, though: Priya Valente.  It’s not far…”  She grimaced, gesturing, “That way, I think?” 

            “I’ll find it,” he returned agreeably.  “Look after him.” 

            She waited until he was out of sight again before growling, “What the _fuck_ , Tay?” 

            “Cancel our connecting flight,” he returned quickly.  “He was here.  I don’t know if he stayed long, but it’s _hot_ – can’t be more than a few days old.  Whatever you had in mind can’t be a better lead than this.” 

            She pursed her lips, glaring up at people still staring at them in a clearly unimpressed way so they started to feel awkward and backed off.  “I thought,” she hissed out, “you said it didn’t work like that.” 

            Taylor choked out a hysterical little giggle.  “It totally _doesn’t_ , but here we are.  Damn…”  He shook his head, eyes a little cloudy again.  “He’s…  Fuck, when we were kids I was stronger than him, but _this_ , just…  Holy shit.  Maybe he was spiking – he’s worried here, that does weird stuff sometimes – but he _saturated_ this whole area and the only time I’ve felt echoes like that have been in disaster zones.  I didn’t think a single person could _do_ that…”  He licked his lips.  “Though it’s… softer?  I think it’ll be gone in a couple more days, but Priya, this is…” 

            She felt her mouth tighten.  _If he’s leaving impressions like this wherever he goes, Tay isn’t going to be able to stomach tracking him._  

            He closed his eyes again, smiling a little to himself.  “Let’s see though…  Worry, but not too bad… exasperation maybe, instead?  He’s calm enough for it… not content, but focused?  Intent, yeah…”  He tipped his head to one side, then his eyes snapped open as his smile sharpened into a wide grin.  “ _Oh_.”  He started climbing to his feet. 

            “What?” she asked warily, standing with him, one hand raised as if she could actually catch his ass if he started to fall again.  She’d make an attempt, at least – that had to count for something. 

            “There’s a…”  He waved a hand in a gesture that made no sense whatsoever.  “Come on.  Where’s your bag?  I don’t want to lose this.” 

            “Stay still a minute,” she scolded, grabbing at the back on his shirt to steady him.  “It can wait that long.  There’s a what?” 

            He made an irritated noise and repeated the wavy hand motion from before; she rolled her eyes and looked around, glad to see the guard coming back with her suitcase.  “Thank-you,” she demurred, shooting him a grateful smile. 

            Tay’s eyes were focused again, and he sent the guard a more genuine smile.  “Definitely.  Sorry for the trouble.” 

            “I’m just glad you’re back on your feet,” the man returned warmly.  “Take better care of yourself.” 

            “You got it.  Thanks.”  He tugged and Priya’s wrist.  “Come on.” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            “It’s just as well,” Duo muttered distractedly in Dutch as he eyed the wiring he’d pulled out of an access panel.  “Hilde usually needed me to rehash something a few times before I could get into a format that made sense for her; she might have gotten better with a more solid foundation, but this gives me a chance to work out a method with you.”  He narrowed his eyes and groaned, picking up… whatever it was… and turning it upside down over a trash bin to shake it out.  “Fucking mice…   How did they even get in here?” 

            Adam hummed sympathetically.  He was trying to be patient – Duo had proven yesterday that he could multitask as he repaired appliances and corrected the boys’ homework while asking a long series of almost random questions to gauge how much Adam already knew about explosives.  If anything, he seemed to think _faster_ if he had something complicated in his hands, body and mouth working entirely independent from each other.  It was something he and Hilde had in common, apparently. 

            That said, Hilde was a little easier to keep on _topic_ than Duo, and despite how busy she was managing her network and being Po’s muscle, it hadn’t taken him long to realize she was small fry compared to Deathscythe’s pilot.  Duo’s network might not be as far flung, but it was larger _and_ more intricate, and considerably more micromanaged… while he worked full time, taught a couple of kids at university pace, and still seemed to have a life.  Often, he did it all while absentmindedly bouncing a toddler who was, as far as Adam could tell, constantly in _everything_ , because both von Koll women had jobs outside the shop. 

            And he still hadn’t seen where they all disappeared to at night; he was only tracking what they did on _non_ -private time. 

            “Anyway, you have more background,” Duo continued without looking up. 

            “Doesn’t feel like it,” he pointed out before he could help himself. 

            The other man snorted.  “From what you described, I probably would have done the exact same thing.  Without supplies or inside knowledge on how something so camouflaged worked, trying to do anything to that bomb would have been stupid.  If you’d been down to five minutes instead of fifteen, maybe, but that’s just desperation.”  Setting the device back on the counter, he added, “Even if you’d been in a high grade bomb suit, with the scale this guy has managed so far?  The blast would have killed you.”  He grimaced.  “Or if you got lucky there, the debris would have done the job.”  Spinning it around, he considered the front… it was looking more and more like some sort of computer.  “Besides, you’re only interested in shutting shit down – Hilde’s hungry for more, and she doesn’t take no for an answer.  She’ll just do something like show up at _Libra_ to play spy without backup instead.”  He shook his head.  “Better to just teach her everything – she’s less likely to go get herself dead that way.” 

            He supposed he could see that.  And he didn’t need to know how to improvise explosions – he had a stockpile of far more stable military plastics if that was a goal he had in mind.  “Tools?” he asked, trying to lead the conversation away from tangents. 

            “Tools and anatomy,” Duo agreed.  “My supplies are limited, so I can probably only make one blanket, if you can handle the extra weight in your bag all the time-” 

            “I can get you more supplies.”  He was probably already sitting on them and just didn’t know it, and they couldn’t be too hard to get if he wasn’t.  Duo was primarily limited by his lifestyle. 

            “So long as you’re subtle,” he returned in a warning tone.  “Too much attention here and I’m fucked.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  “I’m not an idiot.” 

            Duo shrugged apologetically, making a face as he jammed his fingers through a slot without resistance.  “That’s how…  Anyway, anything I throw together is going to be…  less than seventy pounds?  Maybe a lot less, depending on what I can get my hands on, but it actually might be better to see if you can get your hands on a premade blanket, military grade… might be lighter.  You’re a packrat, and they don’t watch those as closely anyway.”  Picking up a pair of needle nose pliers, he added, “If you can get the supplies, what I’d _like_ to make are some shaped water disruptors… though I’d need a few test runs, maybe give them to you guys and have you set them off somewhere remote and record a few dummies in real practice…” 

            Adam shrugged.  “Make a list.” 

            “Cool.  Even that though, it’s less portable, wouldn’t help if you found yourself like you did with Hilde again, so…  Grab the whiteboard?  There’s a couple of common layouts, and like anything else, the connection points are the weak spots.  ‘Course, there’s anti-tampering to watch for, but we’ll get to that...” 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – Airport**

            “Well, so much for that,” Tay groused, eying the taxi line-up irritably. 

            “He got a cab?” Priya guessed. 

            “Looks like.”  He scrunched his nose.  “Damn.  I thought we had it.” 

            “Mm…”  It was probably a dumb idea, but worth asking?  “We could get a cab of our own and ask for a tour of the sights,” she suggested.  “Get out if you feel something, and go from there.” 

            “It doesn’t work like that.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, you said that, but you know?”  She waved at the building they’d just left. 

            Tay closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “Cars are too…” He shook his head.  “Even if it did work, I _can’t_.  Amsterdam’s seen some major shit lately, and that’s just what makes the news.  If we get too close to where the riot happened, I could go _catatonic_ ; disaster zones are living nightmares, and they last for years.  There’s still enough echoes in parts of L3-X18999 from that residential collapse in 194 to make me queasy, and most of the people there died before they realized what was happening.  A mob that lasted for hours, when everything was strung high as hell before it even went down?”  He shivered.  “I don’t remember the numbers, but the casualties were high, and people got trapped and died _slow_.  And that’s only counting the misery, not the rage and violence.” 

            She’s never envied him for his talent, and this was why.  “What if we only checked other areas?”  She argued.  “You said Quatre’s mark is lasting for days – we could take our time, go through it sector by sector and stay away from that.” 

            Tay guffawed.  “Yeah, but the Dutchman is the _nice_ gang leader in this town.  If we had a direct lead I’d grab all my knits and push through it, but Priya, so much of this city is dangerous for me that a search like that would barely touch on anything at all.”  Sighing, he pushed a hand back through his hair, pulling his bangs off his forehead.  “No…  If he’s leaving impressions like this wherever he goes, we’ll find more leads that are safer than this.  You said he’s been all over the place?  Let’s head for your original start point.  Worst case scenario if we don’t get far there, we go around different airports and centers until we find a pattern for places he visits more frequently, _then_ start a search pattern.  Just…”  He shuddered again.  “Not Amsterdam.” 

            Looking back to the main concourse, he pursed his lips.  “I’d say we should get surveillance footage, but my timeframe is vague, and we don’t even know what they look like.” 

            She narrowed her eyes.  “They?” 

            He scrunched his nose, making that same stupid gesture from earlier.  “He was with someone, it…”  He waved his fingers as he tried to come up with the right word.  “It pulls, there’s this weird… _resonance_ going on – echoes of echoes, and there’s different emotions attached to it.  There was somebody here with him that he’s tangled with on a level I’ve only ever done with my _mom_ , so he has to be important.  Maybe whoever it was he met the first time you caught his cards being used in Greece – what were you calling him?” 

            She perked up.  “Odin.  The other name for the hotel was Odin Lowe, and he bounced around almost as much, but in different places than Katriel.” She’d started to think the two might not have any further business together after all, but it was a moot point, since both men had dropped completely off the grid.  It was the conclusion that they had both switched to new names entirely that had driven her to seek out Taylor in the first place. 

            He nodded, eyes distant as he thought.  “It might not be the same person as before, but that doesn’t really matter.  Quatre’s using him – or her, I guess, there’s not enough of a flavor to really tell – as an anchor, and…  I can’t even begin to explain how much trust that takes.  I love my mom, but I only do it when I absolutely have to, it’s _weird_ , and-”  He shook his head again, cutting himself off.  “I don’t know, maybe it’s different for him, but it’s still a big deal.”  Turning around, he started heading back in through the automatic doors.  “How long was our layover supposed to be, again?” 

            “Ah, three hours.”  She jogged a few steps to catch up to him, staying close.  She supposed it was a good thing she hadn’t taken the time to cancel their tickets just yet. 

-

***

-

**October 29 th 198 – Tuesday –Amsterdam, Netherlands – New Renew**

            The bell on the door jingled as it was thrown open.  “We’re back!” Audi called out triumphantly.  “A few days older and, like, a couple trillion richer!” 

            Odin met Melissa’s eyes as she came in from the garage, wiping at her hands with a rag, and tried to look resigned.  The woman grinned at him in response, so he figured he’d done it right. 

            “What were you doing, again?” Duo called back from upstairs, sounding distracted.  In a quieter voice and switching to Dutch, he added, _“No, check this again, you’re forgetting something.”_  

            “Looking up my inheritance.” 

            _“Wait, you’re **serious**?”_ Amos demanded in a shrill voice. 

            Odin winced, giving Marie a reproachful look.  “A little less drama next time, please.” 

            “Sure thing, Jack.” 

            He narrowed his eyes at her.  “Don’t do that.”  He didn’t care what his birth certificate said, he…  _No._   If that was his name, he was starting to get why Odin had always called him kid or junior, since having two Odins would get confusing.  There was something… something _bad_ about the name Jack.  Something he didn’t really want to look into yet. 

            He was still trying to wrap his mind around his age, and that Odin might have had plans in place for him if he hadn’t immediately left L3-X18999.  

            …Odin had only ever cared about family.  _Why wouldn’t he have **mentioned** it?_  

            He wasn’t ready to open that file yet.  That realization bothered him, but acknowledging it seemed like the lesser of two evils right now.  Maybe a couple weeks of getting used to the rest would make a difference, but it was… overwhelming. 

            _I’ll get used to it._   He always did.  But usually it was to _bad_ things, so this? 

            He wished he could talk to Leia.  She’d had good advice the first time he’d brought up the retraining, and talking about it with her hadn’t hurt like every time it had come up since.  _Maybe because she left emotions out of it?_   But that wasn’t really an option anymore.  He’d ask Quatre, but if he was _feeling_ it at the same time, that was worse. 

            _Moira, maybe._   It would still be tangled, but he didn’t think that could be avoided, and she _got_ things instinctually when he had to fight his way through it.  He wanted to have a better idea of what he was thinking himself first, but…  Well, he hadn’t visited in a while.  _Maybe once we have the foundations laid out,_ he decided.  There was an unimaginable amount of sheer legwork that needed to be done before what he and Quatre wanted could attempt Step Two even with the unexpectedly large boon of what Odin had left him, and they were still neck deep in the _planning_ to build up those foundations... 

            Which was, after all, why he was here. 

            “I’m collecting wish lists,” he announced as he started up the stairs.  “Cat and the guys are tackling the economic end, but I need more information before we decide what we’re doing.”  The buying and selling was largely beyond him – he understood the setting up of bases on a basic level, but Quatre had experience with it, and that was without diving into the company politics that he knew literally nothing about. 

            He hadn’t even made up his mind about whether he _wanted_ to learn, but he didn’t think Quatre would just keep doing this for him forever, so he didn’t have a choice.  It was all indirect, almost circular waves and subtle push and pull entirely different from the inside of even the most complex machine, and the more he picked up, the less he liked it. 

            It was upsetting to realize that now, despite being away from the Barton Foundation, away from OZ and everything else, he still had to master skills he didn’t _want_. 

            _“Wish lists?”_ Duo asked skeptically.  _“What does that even mean?”_  

            “What it sounds like.”  Duo, Nolan, and Amos were sitting around the table with books and papers scattered between them, though Amos was noticeably not paying any attention to his work now.  No one else was in the room.  “Where’s Adam?” 

            _“Hitting a handful of depots for wish lists, I guess,”_ Duo returned, looking up and grinning before falling back into English.  “He beat you to the punch; we’re running Bomb Squad 101 this week.” 

            That was a narrow view.  “What about not bombs?” 

            He scowled.  “Heero, I swear to God, if you draw attention here, I’ll shoot you.” 

            He held in a smile, leaning against the doorway.  “Again?” 

            “Won’t be grazes this time,” Duo confirmed, eyes dark.  “Leave me out of it.” 

            “You don’t want to be a trillionaire?” 

            Duo threw his pencil at him.  “Get out of my house.” 

            It was too light to be accurate and went wide, but Odin caught it anyway and tossed it back.  “Fine.  I’ll ask Adam instead.”  He’d hoped to bring them both in, but if Duo wanted to be whiny about it, he could be too. 

            “You do that.  Between the three of you and Cat’s new tagalongs, you should have everything covered, whatever you get up to.  I’m out.”  Frowning and shifting in his seat to face him more directly, he asked, “Where did he find them, anyway?  I didn’t realize it wasn’t the Maguanacs until I really _looked_ at Skye.” 

            Wasn’t it obvious?  “Libya?”  They were from just about everywhere before the Fall, he’d gathered, but he was reasonably sure they hadn’t been as far west as Tunisia or Algeria, to have made a successful escape to where Adashia was located.  Quatre was very consciously sparing with details, but it didn’t take a genius to read between the lines, and a lot of the others talked amongst themselves with more ease. 

            “…Libya.” 

            “Pretty sure.” 

            “ _Cambyses_ Libya.” 

            _Oh._   “He said he talked to you,” Odin argued, more with himself than Duo.  _Shit._  

            “Yeah, and he said the last couple years had been bad and changed the subject, so I didn’t pry,” Duo snapped back, voice raising as he stood, hands digging into his hair along his scalp.  “ _Fuck_!  How the fuck does a _space heart_ survive _Cambyses_?” 

            _Was I the **only** one who missed that?_   “I wouldn’t know.”  He wouldn’t have said anything if he he’d thought Quatre kept Duo in the dark, but it was done now; nothing to do but mitigate the damage and apologize. 

            _But where do I start?_  

            Duo was pacing now as the boys looked on, wide-eyed.  Odin jerked his head in the direction of the door, and that was all the excuse they needed to leave the room.  “Audi?”  She’d do better at calming them down than him, he imagined. 

            “Yeah, I got it,” she called up, sounding stressed but still confident.  _Good enough._  

            “God, I’m gonna be sick,” Duo muttered, slipping into his L2 accent.  “You know how long?” 

            “Fifteen months.” 

            “ _God_ …” 

            “He spent it finding people who wanted out and keeping them safe.”  He’d gathered that much from eavesdropping, even though he thought as much was obvious because it was _Quatre_.  “And he cut the deal with the Strike Force scouts to turn against the rest, before leaving so the Regime wouldn’t ID him.” 

            Duo groaned, ducking his head.  “So all his guys’re…?” 

            Odin shrugged.  “They stayed with him.  Regime database says that his original squad was over a hundred fifty, though.  Not everyone made it through the fighting, and he doesn’t think he’ll see some of them ever again, but more than a few have started making contact.”  Marie fiddled with the network every time someone else came back and needed a phone. 

            His friend dropped heavily back in his chair.  “Fuck.” 

            Odin considered him.  His body had gone limp, head thrown back, eyes closed, looking…  drained.  And defeated.  “Don’t do this in front of him,” he warned. 

            Duo tilted his head to level a glare at him.  “Ya _think_?” 

            Well, that was probably a good sign. 

-

***

-

**Beyneu, Kazakhstan**

            “Hello?” 

            _“Hi, this is Des Noin, trying to reach Colonel David Mitchell,”_ a deep baritone announced in a by rote sort of way.  _“It’s a matter of some importance.”_  

            Razo doubted that, but started looking around for the man.  “You don’t have his cell number?” 

            _“No, I just spent three hours going through the Regime switchboard because I could.”_   The man’s tone was a complete deadpan.  _“It seemed like a great way to spend my day off – **so** glad I did it.”_  

            Razo rolled his eyes, starting to walk – he didn’t see Mitchell anywhere.  “You have Tuesdays off?” he asked gamely. 

            _“I’m retired, I have every day off.  Who am I talking to, anyway?”_

            “Second Lieutenant Charel, Mitchell’s current second-in-command.  I’m trying to find him.” 

            _“Oh good.  The urge to break something was getting intense, and my wife’s favorite platters are a little too conveniently close.  Next time I see Jake, I’m stealing half his contacts.  I’m out of patience and done with all these young pups forgetting they own fucking phones.”_

            _Ah…  Nowhere to really go with that._   “You mean Colonel Miller, I’m guessing?” 

            _“Good, you have eyes – that’ll serve you well,”_ Des drawled.  _“He finally came by and got over himself, then?”_  

            “Uh, not sure about the second part, but he swept through last month like a hurricane.  Cassidy just about had a fit, then skittered off after him last week.” 

            _“A month.”_   A frustrated noise came through the line.  _“That settles it.  Cass?  Book me that flight, please, I’m **done**.”_  

            “Flight?”  Catching sight of his commander, he pressed the mouthpiece of the phone to his shoulder and waved.  “Dave!” 

            _“Doesn’t concern you,”_ Des returned dismissively.  _“You find him?”_  

            Mitchell had waved back and was coming closer.  “Yeah, he’s on his way.  What’s this about anyway?” 

            _“Miller.”_  

            Razo rolled his eyes.  “Is everything about that guy?” 

            Des’s voice turned amused.  _“He leaves a hell of a wake – you can’t help but get drawn in if you’re nearby.  You ever know anyone like that?”_  

            Robby immediately came to mind.  “Yeah, I guess I do.”  He wanted to get back in touch, but he was still on the fence about how Dave would take that initial set of lies.  Probably with an eye roll, but another couple weeks of solid friendship before he brought it up wouldn’t hurt either, he figured.  “Phone,” he offered as he handed over the clunky satellite device assigned to their squad. 

            “Hello?”  His eyes lit up, “Des, _hey_!  It’s been-  What?”  He frowned.  “No, of course not, why would I-  Of course I know you can text, why would I-  Oh my God, _why_?”  He rolled his eyes skyward and settled back on his heels, obviously hearing out a lecture.  “Yeah, that was dumb.”  A longer pause.  “Probably because it’s classified?  Gee, thanks a lot, I love you too.  Was there a point to this, or is it just my turn?  Okay…  Fine, you know what?”  He rattled off his cell number.  “Text me so I have yours too and I’ll see about getting you the auxiliaries.  I’m not arguing, you’re not wrong, but seriously, what the fuck, man?”  Another pause.  “Please.  I have no idea what has a bug up your ass.”  He narrowed his eyes.  “I’m twenty-nine years old, I’ll talk how I damn well want when someone’s bitching me out.  What gives, old man?”  Mitchell’s stance shifted.  “Yeah, I’m listening…” 

            He went very still then, staring off into nothing.  Des obviously continued to talk for a while, but Mitchell didn’t move; didn’t even blink, just breathed. 

            _“ **Dave**!”_  

            Des must have barked it damn loud for Razo to hear it at all, let alone so clear, but it jerked Dave back out of his daze and he started shaking his head.  “Yeah, I…”  He drew in a deep breath.  “ _Fuck_ , that’s…  there’s no _fucking way_ , Des, that’s… fuck.”  He groaned.  “Shut up.  I don’t even care, this is insane, there’s so many things wrong with it and…  He would have _called_ me.  Even if we’d still been fighting, he still would’ve called me, that doesn’t make sense.” 

            His mouth tightened as Des talked more.  “I’m _not_ wrong, this is one of those _things_ – we’re just missing something, and I’m going to find out.”  He dragged his free hand over his face, looking exhausted.  “Fuck, I can’t promise that, you know I can’t, what if-  No, I can’t go, I’m way too far east, but I half trained his boys and Dorothy owes me, I’ll figure it out and try to make them loop you in, okay?  You have my number now, but I need to start making calls if I’m going to get anywhere with this before my next op starts; you’re lucky you caught me when you did.”  He sighed again, obviously listening.  “Okay, yeah, good idea, do that.  I’ll update you when I’ve got something, okay?  Sometimes he just lets his phone go dead, or maybe he smashed it and you’re having a panic attack over nothing.  There’s no way he went AWOL again over _good_ news, if this is even real.  _No_ , I’ll explain later, just…  Damn it, Des, I’m hanging up so I can shut down your conspiracy theories, bye.”  He hit the disconnect and handed the phone back to Razo before covering his face with his hands.  “ _Fuck_!” 

            “Uh…”  _AWOL?  Again_? 

            “Don’t ask, I don’t have the time,” Mitchell snapped as he yanked his phone out of his pocket and started to quickly jab at the screen, walking away.  “We’re wheels up in forty, make sure everyone’s ready in the hangar bay before that.”  He brought the cell up to his ear.  “Come on, Lin, pick up…  Pick up, pick up, pi-  Lin!  Please tell me no one’s been kidnapped, because I’m running out of ideas here, buddy…” 

-

***

-

**October 30 th 198 – Wednesday – Aura, Uganda – Afternoon**

            “You’re early,” Lucrezia announced without looking up as the door opened.  She’d been hoping to have the rest of these reports sorted out before Odin and Audi showed up, and she was close, but, well…  _Horseshoes and hand grenades._   He could give her a few more minutes before leading into what he was so excited to tell her about that he caught a direct flight all the way down here. 

            The mountain of a man half falling though the doorway started to laugh weakly.  “Not… the welcome I was expecting,” he gasped, his deep baritone cracking with pain. 

            “ _Rashid_!” she cried, shoving back from the table and running over to him.  He was stumbling, clearly exhausted, eyes wild and jaw tight.  _Fuck!_   The only person she’d expected was Odin, but she _was_ taking a turn manning a safe house while she did the less glamorous end of being a general, and _Rashid was back_.  “Get in here!”  She was already shutting the door, though she left it unlocked – by the clock, her beau was only about ten minutes out, maybe less.  “Are you safe?” she demanded, coming around the side he wasn’t favoring and guiding him towards the couch.  “Any tails?”  He wouldn’t lead them back here if he had a choice, but she’d never seen him gasping like this either.  “I have back-up arriving in a few minutes, I can divert them to handle it.” 

            He shook his head, trying to hold in a groan as he gingerly dropped onto the cushions.  “I’m clean,” he assured her.  “Took…”  He closed his eyes and focused on taking deep breaths – beads of sweat were trailing down his face, and his beard was a long way from the neat trim he normally kept it in.  “Spent too long making sure,” he grit out eventually.  “Arm keeps getting worse.  Help me with my coat?” 

            “We might need to cut it,” she warned, starting to undo the zipper.  It was bulky, and made out of dark leather – she wasn’t sure how bad of an injury it was hiding, but the normally stoic commander bit back a curse when she bumped the wrist he was holding close to his chest. 

            “Let’s try first,” he insisted, shifting his left shoulder around to start wriggling his good arm out of his sleeve without moving his right.  She grabbed the cuff and he managed it in short order, then froze, face paling, as he instinctively tried to shrug the rest off. 

            _Shoulder, then,_ she decided, pinching her lips together as she reached around him to peel the leather off his back.  After a moment, he leaned forward a little to help, and thankfully it fit loosely, because she made short work of gently pulling it off his right side without more involuntary noises from the Maguanac.  He only had a t-shirt on underneath, damp with sweat.  No bloodstains, which was good. 

            On the other hand, his shoulder was very obviously dislocated. 

            She swallowed hard, thinking.  Normally, she wouldn’t think much of it; she’d put shoulders back in before.  Jake had shown her how one particularly awful day in space when they were eleven, before he’d completely dropped out of the MS program.  It had been useful periodically in the years since, and as far as she knew, she’d only caused damage getting the joint back in socket one of the five times she’d done it – the one time she’d tried on someone significantly stronger than her. 

            Rashid was… 6’9 and almost three hundred pounds of solid muscle.  She wasn’t sure she was _capable_ of the amount of traction needed. 

            “There’s a grim look,” the man muttered tiredly, trying to smile at her in jest. 

            “How long has it been like this?” she asked woodenly, debating who else she had nearby with more medical training and coming up empty.  _Hospital._   The swelling was bad enough that the divot showing the dislocation was nearly hidden, and she’d swear the joint was nearly twice the size of his left…  Hell, she couldn’t even cover his _good_ shoulder with both hands.  He was such a gentle man that it was easy to forget just how big he was, but…  _Fuck._   If he was running, they’d be watching the hospitals.  _Odin might be able to get him on a plane, get him to one of our bases._   But Rashid wasn’t so easy to tuck away in a cargo hold, and he was barely coordinated enough to stumble, let alone sneak. 

            “Yesterday,” he admitted, closing his eyes.  “The sun was still up, but only just.  Maybe…  two hundred miles northwest?” 

            And he’d already passed the twelve-hour mark.  “ _Shit_.”  That would explain how aggressive the swelling was.  They had to at _least_ get it back in joint before they could get him on a plane. 

            “Language,” he admonished, dropping his head onto the back of the couch; he was slouched enough to manage it. 

            “I’m going to hear worse from you before the hour’s out,” she shot back. 

            That tired grin widened, though he didn’t lift his head back up.  “Oh, much worse.”  His mouth tightened into a grimace again.  “I tried myself, a few times.  Before I stole the first car, and after the third – it only grew worse.”  Letting out a deep sigh, he added, “I’m not sure… my chest hurts, but that only began after the rush wore off.  I do not think there’s bleeding, but-” 

            “There could be a break or two already,” she agreed, coming out of her crouch and dropping her hands to her hips as she thought.  “Sit tight for a minute.”  She had meds, at least, and a sling; though she wasn’t sure any of them would _fit_ him or if she’d have to make one.  “Any head injuries?” she asked as she piled all her papers onto the kitchen counter and opened the linen closet that was mostly full of medical supplies. 

            “No,” he returned, starting to pant.  “No, I managed that.” 

            “Good.”  She dropped the iodine, gloves, and auto injectors on the table and started rummaging through her slings, pulling the strap for the largest around her neck and grimacing at the length before shoving it back in the cabinet – she’d reorganize later.  “Have you taken anything yet?” 

            “Tylenol.  No help.” 

            “I’m not surprised.”  He was smart enough to avoid the blood thinners, at least – probably concerned about the potential for internal bleeding.  Seeing as he didn’t seem to be deep in shock, she doubted it, but better safe than sorry.  She had some boards for splints, triangle bandages… 

            _Screw it._   She shut the door and moved to wash her hands.  Based on the stories alone, Odin knew more about improvised bandaging than she did.  She’d always had the best of materials with OZ, and Sally made medical supplies a major priority, but there were always outliers and damn it all, she only had _basic_ medical training.  But she was what Rashid had right now, and it was going to have to be enough. 

            Lucky for him, though, she had friends.  All things considered, his timing wasn’t too bad. 

            Rashid watched her dry her hands and snap on gloves in a resigned way as she grabbed the iodine and pushed up the left sleeve of his shirt, half kneeling between his legs.  “What are you giving me?” 

            “Until I can get Sally on the phone with a better recommendation?  Ketamine.  Low dose, but you’re twice the size of anyone I’ve ever treated before, so keep me posted; we’re probably going to give you more.”  The less pain he was in, the more relaxed he would be and the easier this would go; though at this point, she wasn’t sure how much it would help.  Still, he deserved a fucking painkiller.  “Ever had it before?” 

            He snorted.  “I can’t say I’ve had the honor.” 

            Well, he was breathing better the longer he sat still, and he seemed a little less shocky; that was something.  “Should take about five minutes, and my help should be here by then.”  Rashid was going to need the younger man’s strength – she was good, but Heero had always been able to brute force things in a way that made you question physics.  Pinching a massive bicep head, she hit the button.  “You were starting to really scare me, big guy,” she admitted, calming down as she realized she _did_ have control of the situation.  “You’ve been gone for over six months; we were starting to think the worst.” 

            He closed his eyes again.  “That is a tale I am not willing to concentrate for right now.” 

            “How about something simpler, then?” she offered, pulling away and carefully capping the exposed needle.  “Who did this?” 

            “A cartel of some sort,” he grumbled.  “They saw me and decided I was Regime… caught me by surprise.  Then the police noticed _that_ fuss, and it got messy.” 

            “Well, other than the shoulder, you look pretty good.”  He had a bit of a wild man thing going on too, but a long shower and some personal time with a razor would fix that.  His tan was deeper than she’d ever seen on any of the Maguanacs, and maybe it was just the time apart, but she’d swear he was even more muscular than before – he certainly hadn’t lost any mass, at least.  “Have you been able to get any news?” 

            “Rumors, but nothing I trust.  Romefeller rising, Cambyses gone.  Cambyses taking Egypt.  Marquise vanished and Relena re-crowned, China invading and turned back…”  He opened his eyes again and gave her a curious look.  “Epyon in Sudan?” 

            She smirked.  “That last was a real treat.  I watched from the command center and kept a copy of the surveillance vid, but the news crews got better footage and it went viral.” 

            Rashid frowned.  “You let Xu fly against _him_?  Or Schbeiker?”  He shifted his weight to sit up more, and let out another involuntary groan, face tightening as he reached over to grasp his arm. 

            “Yuy, actually.”  She settled a hand on his good shoulder.  “Cool it, what do you need?  Sit up straight?”  He nodded, and she wrapped an arm around his back below the shoulder blades and urged him to lean forward.  “Brace your feet and scoot back.  There we go.”  There was a blanket on the back of the couch that she tugged half around him before he leaned back again, securing it behind him.  Once she had him with his back flat against the couch, head too high to rest now, she pulled away and darted into the room with beds to grab a pillow, heading for the freezer.  “You should’ve seen him, too,” she called back.  “Like I’d offered a junkie a month’s supply of pure heroin.”  She pulled half the cold packs out, the big ones, and headed back for the couch, dropping the packs on the ottoman nearby so she could fold the pillow in half and tuck it behind his head. 

            He sighed as he leaned back fully, relaxing a little more as she flicked the blanket out of the way and picked up the first pack, tucking it around the top of his shoulder.  “Ah,” he protested.  “It’s on skin.” 

            “It’s corn syrup – it won’t burn you.  I need the inflammation as far down as we can get it before we try this, so try to just sink into it.  Might help with the pain too.”  Picking up another, she slid it between his ribs and inner arm, and he automatically moved his arm closer to keep it in place, breathing deeply – from pain or an attempt to follow her advice was anyone’s guess.  _Probably both._   The third she draped around his elbow and forearm, covering at least a good chunk of his lower triceps, and the fourth wrapped around the rest of his upper arm vertically.  He started to shiver as she pulled the blanket tight around him to keep the last in place, securing the other end around the good shoulder and under his thigh.  “Starting to feel weird yet?” 

            “Just cold.”  His teeth started to chatter. 

            Lucrezia grimaced, but nodded – she hadn’t really expected results so fast, but she could hope.  “Let me know – I need to call this in, see what Sally has to say.”  There were other physicians she could get a hold of, but she knew her friend would answer the phone right now, and she’d personally treated Rashid in the past – she wouldn’t have to waste time laying down the foundations. 

            Unfortunately, it was about what she’d expected.  Get it back in socket stat, and get him to the Blue Nile base – the closest major facility they could drive or fly him into with impunity – for imaging ASAP.  Get an IV running sooner than later, and some advice on dosages of what meds she could safely combine with the ketamine.  Hanging up, she started to look up Abdul’s number.  “Rashid?” 

            “Getting there,” he returned in a sleepy voice. 

            “Yeah?”  That was promising. 

            He made a grumbly whining noise and slumped a little further. 

            Yeah, that sounded about right. 

            “Heya!” Audi called cheerfully as she threw the door open.  “Guess what?  We-  Uh.  Hi.” 

            Rashid blinked at her a few times as the light from outside hit his face before closing his eyes again, not moving.  “Hi.” 

            Odin followed her in and shut the door quickly, dropping his duffel by the door and throwing the deadbolt.  “Lucrezia?” 

            “Audi, this is Rashid,” Lu introduced as she came around the kitchen counter.  “Rashid, I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to remember later, but Heero’s here to help.” 

            Odin signed something she didn’t follow at his apprentice and came closer, pushing up his sleeves.  “Status?” 

            “Shoulder’s out, and he’s only been on ice for maybe five minutes.” 

            He nodded.  “Did you already try?” 

            “I did,” Rashid announced, narrowing his eyes at the gundam pilot.  “It won’t move much, though.” 

            “He also waited over four hours before trying,” Lu added tersely.  “I think we’re around eighteen, now.” 

            Odin raised his brows.  “What did you brace against?” 

            “What?” 

            Odin frowned, looking dismayed.  “Another five or ten on ice,” he decided, turning back to her.  “I’ve never waited longer than an hour.” 

            “I’ve never tried on someone so much bigger,” she admitted. 

            He shrugged.  “That’s just leverage.  I put Odin’s in when I was…”  He grimaced.  “Nine, I was… eight or nine, and he was over six foot.  Can’t be too different.” 

            “You haven’t done it since?” she asked, feeling her stomach drop. 

            He shrugged again.  “On me, sure.”  Glancing back at the larger man, who was starting to zone out, his frown deepened.  “Please tell me you drugged him.  If you didn’t, I need to go blackmail a surgeon.” 

            She loved how he could be so sweet without meaning to.  “Drugged,” she confirmed. 

            Odin visibly relaxed, nodding to himself.  “Any breaks?” 

            “Haven’t checked yet.”  She started summing up her conversation with Sally, Odin nodding along as Audi glanced around awkwardly, looking concerned but unsure about what to do.  Not really thinking about it, Lucrezia walked over and pulled her into a hug without breaking monologue.  She was getting tall; pulling her close meant resting her cheek more or less against the girl’s shoulder.  It brought back memories of hugging Leia when the older teenager was riding a meltdown, feeling her muscles start to relax… 

            …Audi was a lot like Leia, actually. 

            _When was Mariemaia’s birthday?_   Close to Jake, sometime, and she’d be the right age… 

            She resisted the urge to pull away and stare into the child’s face as her mind went blank, tightening her grip for a moment instead to try to make up for her mouth just stopping.  The coincidence would be… _absurd_.  She’d long since lost count of how many children around Mariemaia’s age had found themselves alone and at loose ends after _Libra_.  Hell, she’d recruited too many of them by this point to even think much of how talented she was; more than a few of her latest cadets had come straight out of the Cambyses nightmare, and they’d all survived for good reasons.  Yasashiku was both younger than Audi and frankly _terrifying_ with a short sword, and he was from sleepy Colorado.  Maybe she’d thought about Marie when she and Sally first started taking some of these kids off the streets, but she’d had no reason to believe Treize’s daughter was on Earth.  Nothing had ever been publicly announced about her when Dekim’s little coup attempt fell through, but the Regime database said they hadn’t been able to find a trace of her since she vanished out from everyone’s noses…  _How long did Odin say he’s had her?_  

            Lucrezia really wished, sometimes, that she had Treize’s mind for details.  Or even just Jake’s – there was no point in wishing for an eidetic memory, and she thought Jake’s had less to do with genetics.  Her father had always said she was more of a do-er; she wasn’t stupid by any means, but classrooms had always taken a lot of effort, while flowing through forms was almost as natural as breathing.  She’d resigned herself to both her strengths and weaknesses years ago, and was generally good at counterbalancing the latter with study and habit, but sometimes? 

            She couldn’t remember if Odin had ever said specifically when he had found Marlé, and she’d only asked in passing – more making conversation than genuine interest.  The age, though, the names, Marlé and now the way they pronounced Audi… the way they’d talked as though they were in easy contact with her mother, then had abruptly burned the identities they had been using because ‘ _she’s been taken into custody’._  But there weren’t any records in the Regime that said anything about Leia- 

            “Lu?” Audi asked worriedly, hesitating, then running a hand through Lucrezia’s long ponytail in an uncomfortable attempt at being reassuring. 

            _Oh, to be thirteen._   She didn’t miss that. 

            Clearing her throat, she pulled back a little and smiled.  “Sorry, a thought just occurred to me.”  _Are those Treize’s eyes?_   She remembered thinking that Marie had his eyes when the girl was a toddler, but eyes could change, and she hadn’t seen him in years either.  _I’m such **crap** with faces…_   She turned back to Odin.  “I was about to call Abdul about transport.  Any thoughts?” 

            “Hn.”  He turned to Audi.  “Look up local private airstrips?” 

            “Ooh, yes!”  She whipped her phone out of what was probably a conceal carry holster – she needed to talk to her about that, letting people realize you could hide things in your clothes was poor form – and moved to sit next to Rashid, careful to keep a foot of buffer between them, but no more.  “And rentals?” 

            “Aa.” 

            “Got it.”  She smiled brightly up at Rashid, who was blinking down at her.  “Hi.” 

            The man looked a little confused, then confused that he was confused.  “Hello,” he returned after a moment. 

            Audi gave him a sympathetic look.  “Serious painkillers, huh?” 

            “I… suppose so.”  He sighed.  “Sorry.  I don’t…”  He made a face that was altogether uncoordinated.  “…believe I can hold conversation.  Right now.” 

            “No worries, dude, we’re going to take care of you,” she returned happily, apparently over her shyness.  “I wanted to see a gundam up close anyway.  You’re totally my excuse to get a look at the new Heavyarms.” 

            Odin rolled his eyes, though he was smiling.  “You could have just asked Lucrezia.” 

            “Hush, I’m working,” she shushed imperiously, bringing her feet up onto the couch so her knees were practically in her face as she tapped away at her phone. 

            He let out an amused chuff before focusing back on Lucrezia.  “We won’t want to go direct; it’ll be too obvious.  Ask Abdul about nearby airstrips or good landing zones and have him meet us?  I need a destination before I can file a flight plan.”  Tipping his head as he thought, he added, “Or falsify one.” 

            Well, that was a neat solution she hadn’t considered.  Then again, she wasn’t adept at arranging things electronically to make it look like she had every right and qualification to do as she pleased, let alone at breakneck speed.  _Maybe I should be taking lessons too,_ she thought with some amusement as she pulled Abdul’s number up again and hit connect, looking back over at Audi. 

            _It really might be her._   But at the same time, she could think of a dozen ways she could be making this into something it wasn’t, and if Audi _wasn’t_ Mariemaia, then she would betray Leia and Treize’s confidence by asking.  Marie’s existence and heritage was less of a secret now than it used to be, but she’d still promised to not talk without express permission.  If Odin _had_ been in contact with Leia, then she must have told him to hide her daughter from any interested parties. 

            _It doesn’t make any difference anyway._   It wasn’t as though she would treat Mariemaia any differently than she already did Audi – the only addition she could think of would be stories about her father, but… either Leia would have already told her those, or decided to never share the truth.  She and Treize had been tragic romantics desperately holding onto a clandestine long-distance relationship, but that had been a long time ago.  Lucrezia hadn’t spoken with Leia for almost nine years, and that was a lot of time for things to change.  For resentment to grow, or to just… lose hope and move on.  Marie could have a loving stepfather by now.  It didn’t seem likely, but, who was she to judge? 

            And Audi could _still_ just be an extraordinarily talented child Odin had stumbled across by accident.  The more she thought about it the more sure she was that _wasn’t_ the case, but she didn’t _know_ , and… well, if she was right, she’d get confirmation eventually.  It didn’t matter. 

            _Except…_   _Does the Regime have Leia?_   The idea made her stomach twist; she was going to go back through the database with the fine-toothed comb once she had the chance.  Leia was too valuable of a political hostage to risk harming, but she’d already lived so _much_ of her life in pretty cages designed to break her will.  The other woman had always risen to the challenge – terrorizing her father into ostracizing her and Marie further and further away from the center of Operation Meteor, dodging any attempts to find her after the rise of the Regime – but everyone had a breaking point, and she’d seen Leia through a crisis or two, knew from her own experience just how much it _hurt_ to pick the pieces back up-  

            _Cool it,_ she reminded herself, rolling her eyes and taking a deep breath.  If she was wrong, then Leia was still free and clear, doing… whatever it was Leia had been doing for the past decade.  If she was right, and the Regime had her, there was no way in _hell_ Jake would let it go unchecked.  Leia might not be one of his beloved, but Treize and Marie both were, and he’d had a _bad_ case of hero worship going for her back in the day.  She was a little too much like Treize’s mom for that _not_ to have happened, because Freud got things right sometimes. 

            Lucrezia bit back a grin, eying her lover as the phone rang.  Actually, she could see a lot of her father’s attitude in Odin too.  He just rolled with the punches and _owned_ whatever happened out like he’d planned for it, then made a wry joke afterwards. No apologies, no recriminations, no drama – just a shrug and a grin at the irony. 

            Or maybe the smile was just for seeing her eyes light up; his sense of humor could be a little hard to track sometimes, but she’d realized last week that he was _cataloguing_ everything about her when they were together. 

            It should probably be creeping her out, but honestly?  The attention was flattering as hell.  And she was _not_ about to argue with the results so far.  She was getting more and more attached by the damn day, and she was pretty sure they were still only just scratching the surface.  _Time will tell, I suppose._  

            She snorted out a laugh as he shifted his weight into a subtle stretch for his bad leg and something else occurred to her.  _Oh **damn** , he has Dad’s same limp._  Her father’s was on the opposite side and had been from a motorcycle accident before he met her mother, but that was _hilarious_. 

            _“Lucrezia,”_ Abdul sing-songed into the phone as he picked up, laughter in his voice.  He was having a good day, then.  _“How may I be of service?”_  

            She smiled and tossed Odin a wink before turning to look back at Rashid – who was apparently trying to follow something Audi was enthusiastically showing him on her phone.  “I need a replacement and a pick-up,” she started.  They liked to keep this particular safehouse well-manned and stocked – it was a good crossroads.  “I’ve got company I’d like to bring home, and I don’t have time to dick around.” 

-

***

-

**Way Station between L3 and L4**

            “Well, this bites,” Catherine announced irritably, crossing her arms. 

            “It’s only a little delay though, right?” Tatiana pointed out, biting her lip in worry.  “Less than two days, right?  That’s not so bad.” 

            “It is when you’re trying to keep Wini fed,” Corso argued immediately, slouching forward to rest his elbows on his legs.  “She doesn’t like being so cooped up either.” 

            Everyone grimaced.  Wini got to be a real pill if they let her work herself up into a temper, and an irate elephant was _nobody’s_ idea of fun.  The rest of the animals were pretty blasé about cages – the lions in particular seemed to _like_ the extra naptime – but Wini was always the first out and the last in for good reason. 

            “Well… there isn’t really anything to be done about it, is there?” Celeste asked hesitantly.  “I mean… this is space; we can’t pack up and go without ships.  Did they at least say why?” 

            “They were being awfully tight-lipped about it,” Cathy groused.  “None of the usual excuses, which is the real worry.  Edwin’s out trying to see if he can hear anything better, but if I had to guess?”  She raised her brows meaningfully.  “Regime’s had its army out here for a while now.  Maybe they found some of what they were looking for.” 

            Celeste, who had never been to space before the start of this tour, went white.  “You think they’re _fighting_ out there?” she half gasped, looking around the room as though she expected it to collapse any moment now.  “Are we _safe_?” 

            Cathy rolled her eyes.  “Probably _was_ fighting, more like, and the debris made a mess of our route.  Either they’ve called in navigators to make a fresh path, or they’re bringing in the Sweepers double-time to get it taken care of before it drifts too bad.  Maybe both.”  Shaking her head, she pointed out, “We’re safer here than we would be if they’d been having a battle the same distance away from us dirtside.” 

            “Space is more polite about civilian zones,” Eileia agreed with a yawn, stretching her arms over her head.  “Most of the time, at least.” 

            “But…”  Celeste flailed her hands a little.  “Colonies are _breakable_!” 

            Leto laughed.  “Oh that’s adorable.” 

            “People are more breakable than colonies, sugar,” Cathy pointed out.  “There’s a lot of steel between us and vacuum, and that’s not even getting into the new security they’ve been putting their tax returns into.” 

            “Tax returns?” Tatiana asked skeptically. 

            “Yeah, the colonies had food, and Earth had raw material.  The Regime may have strong-armed them into minimal rations the first couple of years, but if they hadn’t offered something to sweeten the pot, we’d have had a whole lot more trouble to deal with than the Barton’s sad little try at another revolution.”  She gestured vaguely at the wall.  “Most have a decent mine field standing guard now – you might be able to slip a ship or two through, but not an army or anything a good size, like during the war.”  Turning to Corso she pointed out, “Depending on how this goes, though, we might end up going back to Earth.  It’s technically safer up here, but you’re right, keeping extra food in reserve for delays gets expensive.” 

            And tranquilizers.  She hated doing it, and most of the time they didn’t need to, but…  Upset elephants might make you want to strangle something, but enraged elephants were the stuff of nightmares – five tons of sheer animal landslide.  Wini had never gotten that way, but that was more to do with catching it early – when she was a little girl, they’d had a bull that went on a rampage, and they’d had to gun him down.  The manager had sworn to never keep a male again too, but that just made it less likely, not impossible.

            She _never_ wanted to see that again.  

            “It could be nothing too,” she pointed out as she sat.  “But it’s something we have to think about.  Nowhere’s completely safe; we just have to do our best to plan ahead and take it as we go.”  Disaster could and _would_ strike anywhere it damn well pleased – wasn’t any excuse to go about too scared to live your life the way you wanted.  She wasn’t going to pull an ostrich and stick her head in the sand, doing whatever she felt like, but she’d decided a long time ago that fear wasn’t ever going to cripple her on its lonesome.  Life just wasn’t long enough to let something like that hold you down. 

            _I’ll talk to Adam, see if he knows anything, before we decide what’s next,_ she decided firmly.  More information never hurt. 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base – Infirmary**

            Marie wasn’t sure how long she’d been curled up in the chair with her face in her knees, but she still didn’t want to move.  That had been…  She was pretty sure she _never_ wanted to do that again, and she hadn’t even been the one doing the doing. 

            She was kinda hoping if she stayed here until Rashid was better enough to be awake and she could talk to him, it might make this feel less awful.  Worse, it seemed like one of those things that Odin just didn’t _get_ , because he kept giving her those utterly confused/worried looks – and she couldn’t tell him how to fix it, because she didn’t know either.  She’d been grateful when Lucrezia led him away because it was getting awkward as crap and… she really wanted her guts to start unknotting sometime soon. 

            She didn’t even _know_ Rashid – why was this so _hard_? 

            The infirmary door swung open again, but she didn’t really pay attention to it until whoever had come through sat down next to her and leaned forward with his elbows in his lap.  “He will be fine, you know,” he announced.  His voice was accented in a way she couldn’t immediately pin down, which normally made her curious, but… 

            Marie sunk a little deeper in on herself, refusing to look up.  “I know,” she mumbled.  She _did_ know, but that wasn’t making the sick feeling any better.  She’d never heard somebody scream like that, and he’d done it _through a gag_ until he could barely make any noise at all. 

            That was about when they decided his collarbone had cracked, if it hadn’t already been – Lucrezia said it was a toss-up. 

            Odin’s face had gone damningly blank after feeling along the bone, but it hadn’t stopped him from bracing the big man against the wall, planting a boot there again for leverage, and throwing his weight as he pushed to wrench the arm out and to the side even harder.  The _sound_ …  She wasn’t sure if the audible crack of bone snapping in two or the wet thunk of the joint sliding back in socket was worse. 

            She hadn’t made it to the bathroom before throwing up. 

            “We won’t know for sure for a few weeks,” the man continued lightly.  “But with Remalene applied now when the inflammation is still so severe, the outlook is good.  The break will keep him in a sling for longer, but the longer the joint was out, the greater the chance he would tear or even sever a tendon.”  She could see movement out of the corner of her eye – probably him shaking his head.  “ _That_ could be crippling.  Complex surgery is only the start, there.” 

            That really _should_ make it feel better, but it just _didn’t_.  Marie swallowed hard.  “I don’t think I could do that,” she admitted without looking up. 

            More movement.  “Not everyone can.” 

            But it made her feel like such a _failure_.  “That’s not okay,” she protested, feeling like she was about to start crying.  “I…”  Odin could do it; Lucrezia could.  She bet this guy could…  probably Hilde and Xu too.  And she _got_ why it was important, her mom was a _doctor_ , it was simple math; sometimes you had to make it worse before you could make it better.  She _knew_ that. 

            But what Odin had done today?  The idea of even _seeing_ it again made her want to retch.  It was important to know, she really should have been paying attention so she’d know it, but- 

            A warm arm wrapped around her shoulders.  “It _is_ okay,” the man insisted, voice soothing.  “It will be what it will, and you will either find your place in spite of it, or you will grow to carry more and conquer your fears.  That is all.”  He rested his chin against the top of her head, which was enough like what Odin would do that even from a stranger it made her feel a little better.  “It is simple, see?  Nothing to worry about.  Do not borrow trouble from the future; it demands triple the interest.” 

            She let out a sharp laugh at that, shifting to finally _look_ at the guy as he pulled back and grinned broadly, dark brown eyes considering her over the round sunglasses he was wearing despite being inside.  “Seriously?” 

            His grin was very self-satisfied.  “I’ve found it largely accurate,” he protested in a mild tone. 

            She snickered a little, then made a face and sniffed loudly, wiping at her eyes and trying to clear her sinuses.  _Yuck._   She still felt awful, but that was no reason to be a brat about it.  Besides – Odin was probably off trying to not be awkward somewhere.  _Pull it together._   Sitting up straight, she offered her new friend a smile.  It felt weak, but it was something, right?  “I’m Audi.” 

            “Heero’s apprentice, yes?”  He nodded decisively, glasses obscuring his eyes again.  “I am Abdul.” 

            “Odin,” she corrected.  “But yeah.  He found me, and I kept him, so that’s a thing.” 

            “Mm.”  He tipped his head, looking thoughtful.  “He told Lucrezia to call him that, but he didn’t mention it to me, so.”  He shrugged.  “I do not care to impose.” 

            “Fifty bucks says he forgot you didn’t magically know it.  He thinks people work like the internet sometimes – he told somebody something, so everyone linked to them picked up on it, right?  I’m half convinced he thinks in programming language instead of something you can talk.”  The analogy didn’t really work, but it was probably as close as anything else.  The circles his thoughts ran in were less straightforward than they used to be – more organic – but a lot of the time that only made his logic _weirder_.  “Odin’s his actual name, and he prefers it.”  _Jack_ Odin, which was _amazeballs_ , but he’d started to look upset when she called him that, so she’d dropped it. 

            Odin fit better anyway. 

            “I think I will pass on that bet,” Abdul decided.  “And now that he is here again, ask him myself.”  He stood.  “Will you be staying with him in the officer’s quarters, or would you care for a bunk in the barracks?” 

            “He’s not just staying with Lucrezia?” she asked as she dropped her legs, a little surprised.  She’d assumed that was the plan, and had told Odin she didn’t care where she crashed before they’d even headed to Africa.  She was actually kinda excited to explore the base and see who she ran into – the barracks might be cool just because she’d never tried to sleep around so many other people.  Probably weird, but worth doing at least once, right? 

            Abdul’s sudden grin was _bright_.  “Is _that_ what they’re doing now?” 

            Her eyes widened.  Lucrezia had mentioned Abdul like they were close, and he didn’t _know_?  “I’ll talk if you will.”  She didn’t have anyone who talked to _both_ of them to gossip with!  Standing up, she added,  “Let’s be friends.” 

            His eyes were still hidden, but she didn’t need to see them with how wide his grin had gotten.  “Excellent.”  Drawing her close with an arm around her shoulder, he started leading her down the hall, away from the infirmary.  “Allow me to show you around.” 

            _I’ll come see how Rashid’s doing later,_ she decided with one last glance back. 

-

***

-

**Zurich, Switzerland**

            “Do you have an opinion on how open we are about us when we see Jack tomorrow?” Jake asked as he picked up his phone.  _Completely dead._   Not exactly a surprise, but still annoying.  He opened his messenger bag to look for a charger. 

            “If he’s not likely to talk to anyone he shouldn’t, I don’t see a reason to hide anything,” Relena returned easily, sitting in one of the suite’s armchairs and carefully going through the clothes that had been packed for her. 

            “He only gossips with Des; he’s good at covert.”  He plugged in his phone and went to look over her shoulder.  “What are you looking for?” 

            “One of my blue blouses.”  She shifted through a few more things, careful to keep them folded.  “The silk.  If I don’t have it, I want to ask Ella to bring it with her.  My white skirt and jacket are in here, and I have a scarf that would match-” 

            “We brought it.”  Dorothy had given him enough warning that he’d been able to make sure her favorites made it into the suitcases.  “It was in a garment bag, though; might be with Dorothy’s things.”  That one matched her eyes perfectly, and she was probably talking about the gauzy blue and white scarf Olivia had turned up with just before they left for space… that would look good.  If they tied it right, it would also help with the marks on her neck.  “Wear that to lunch tomorrow?”  She should have some dainty little white flats in there somewhere too.  Maybe with her aquamarines, if they’d brought them… or just the diamonds.  He had a bracelet he’d been meaning to give her that would work well with those anyway. 

            “If you’d like,” she returned amiably, leaning back against his chest once he was close enough and smiling up at him.  “I wish you’d wear earrings more.” 

            “Easy enough,” he assured her, wrapping one arm loosely around her shoulders and tracing the curve of her cheek with one hand.  He’d gotten the two piercings in his left ear because he liked how they looked, after all.  “It’s against military regs, so I don’t, but.”  He shrugged.  Even _if_ he felt threatened by that, no one would actually call him out on it.  Add that to the fact that he’d already taken himself off active assignment before leaving Munich?  “They come out if there’s any real chance of a fight, though.”  Remalene could heal the cartilage if someone ripped it out and he wouldn’t have a hard time getting his hands on a script for vain reasons, but it was also blindingly painful in a moment where keeping his focus might be critical. 

            “Mm,” she returned happily, turning her cheek into his chest.  “You should do shirtless more often too.” 

            “Hn…”  That was another issue altogether.  “You’re going to have to work harder for that.”  If they lived alone, he’d probably be able to teach himself out of the sheer _squick_ that idea set off within a couple weeks, but in Sarracenia?  “I’ll think about it, but that’s… going to be a process.”  He knew it didn’t make sense, so he was willing to try, but he wasn’t going to promise her he’d manage it when the idea honestly freaked him out a little. 

            “Mm-hmm,” she murmured easily.  “Is it a gendered thing?  I mean, I saw you running around the barracks in a towel way back when-” 

            “Closer to peer pressure and trying to not stand out more than I already was.”   _And trying **really** hard not to think about it._   He’d been tired enough that day that it had mostly worked, until he’d realized Relena was there too.  “If I didn’t skate the line a little there, it would have caused more friction than the discomfort was worth.  Same principle as knowing I’m going to have strangers touching me.” 

            “And not something you should have to do in your own home,” she finished for him. 

            “I’m not against working on it,” he repeated, taking in a deep breath and running his fingers through her hair, loving the way she was relaxing even more of her weight into him.  If she wanted something of him, he was going to do his damndest to deliver.  “It’s just not easy, either.” 

            He could feel her lips shift into a smile against his skin, and even after three days, that was erotic enough that he almost missed her response.  “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” 

            It… was a really good thing he’d already passed the reins over to the majors and Rome.  He’d underestimated just how easily she could derail his thoughts now that he could _have_ her.  Somehow, he’d thought it would get easier, instead of damn near impossible. 

            _Well, you live and you learn._   He grinned as he knelt to match the height of her chair, pulling another kiss from her as she started to giggle and reach for his neck- 

            The doors on the connecting suite slammed open.  “Okay, honeymoon’s over!  If we let Dorothy field one more call from the Regime, I think the world might actually end for good this time!” 

            Relena started laughing in earnest as Jake groaned, pulling away to sink the rest of the way to the floor.  “ _Mai_ …” he called warningly. 

            “It’s been three days,” she protested.  “If you haven’t made good on it yet, you’re gay; otherwise, keep it in your pants until the rest of us go to sleep!” 

            “Harsh,” Relena protested playfully as she stood to pick up the complimentary robe from the armchair across from hers and toss it over him.  “You keep me under twenty-four hour watch.  If you’re not willing to reconsider, I’ll just have to play the deviant until you compromise.” 

            Major Marakesh laughed, delighted.  “Bravo!  Standing ovation, I’m sure!” 

            “Get _out_ ,” Jake growled, not really interested from moving from under his pile of embroidered silk and terrycloth. 

            “Only if she takes her phone back and promises to attend to it,” Mai countered.  “Is yours still dead?” 

            “Only for another ten minutes or so,” Relena dismissed.  “He just plugged it in.” 

            “Good, he has voicemail too.  You have no idea how close Lin came to busting down the doors yesterday, David was about to have a _fit_.” 

            Jake frowned.  “What?” 

            “Something about Des being the patron saint of blackmail.  It honestly didn’t make any sense to me.” 

            He started laughing; because really, it had been a while since anyone had brought _that_ up.  “You obviously haven’t spent enough time with a Noin!”  Though with Lu, it was usually closer to extortion. 

            She snorted and started walking heavily for the door again, which he appreciated, because he knew she was doing it so he could tell where she was – he hadn’t been able to track her progress around the suite a moment ago.  “Whatever.  Just listen to your voicemail in order, oldest first.  Everyone’s back in with supper when you’re ready to be social again.” 

            “We need to do at least a little strategy planning to cover what I’ve missed before we finalize my schedule for the next few weeks,” Relena reminded her absently.  “Mu’s gone?” 

            “For two days, but she got delayed before reaching L1 – we can go over it later.  Voicemail, both of you.  And sound ordinance codes are _not_ a thing anymore; if you holler, we’re barging in, so if you want to have any _delays_ ,” she pronounced the word with lascivious relish, “be quiet about it.” 

            “ _Out_!” 

            Relena snickered as the door slammed shut behind the major.  “She just winked at me.” 

            Jake groaned, pressing his cheek to the plush carpet.  “How opposed are you to the idea of permanent shoji being installed around the private area of your suite back home?  Western colors to match the rest.”  It was easier to deal with people barging in all the time if they couldn’t _see_ more than maybe a silhouette of him. 

            And in the event of an emergency, shoji weren’t _really_ a barrier. 

            “Mm, I’d prefer white paper, and match the floors for the wood.  Maybe a more obscuring sheer for the bed curtains too.”  Her tone turned more amused.  “That won’t help the sound issue.” 

            He sighed and sat up.  “They can’t keep you secure without sight _or_ sound.”  If he had to compromise half his privacy for her security, it wasn’t going to be the visual aspect.  “And sound is more important to deliver a warning.”  It was easier to overlook a visual cue. 

            “Mm, I suppose.  I want to see the layout you have in mind before the install, but I don’t mind.  Are we keeping the same second floor layout?” 

            “I was debating.”  He needed to talk it over with the majors, but it might be a good idea.  Or overkill. 

            It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. 

            “Without you as an extra layer between me and the door, I thought you might want to shift things so the anteroom entrance could only be reached through an officer’s quarters,” Relena continued.  “Obscure the apartment from the second floor altogether.  I prefer the third floor entry almost to the point of exclusion anyhow.”  

            “If we’re doing that, it’s a little too direct, but I like the general concept.”  Not that he wasn’t _still_ going to be between her and danger, but it needed to be someone’s _job_ too. 

            “Oh?” 

            “Not to one of the majors’ quarters – or at least, not in an obvious way, maybe with more connecting doors but… that’s a much bigger discussion that involves everyone else, including Hayden.”  Hayden knew the structural supports of Sarracenia like the back of his hand, and at least one of his original suggestions for room layout had been oddly involved like that.  But shared space between the guards was an issue that he technically had no say in now, and if they put Mai in a direct barricade between them and the outside world she would insist on some sort of concession- 

            _No._   That wasn’t right.  He’d already resigned himself to the fact that there was no getting away from Mai’s intrusiveness, and she had the kind of anti-MS infantry experience you rarely saw anywhere, let alone outside the Specials.  The only people in Sarracenia she couldn’t wipe the floor with were Jerome and himself, and Rome didn’t have _nearly_ the same level of experience with divergent weaponry.  The captain was stronger, but Mai wasn’t that far behind and might be able to beat them _all_ for stamina.  Rome was more skilled in hand-to-hand, but Mai was more creative and able to either take or _make_ openings because of it… and turn literally anything into a deadly weapon, the way Jake had been taught to.  Rome tried, but he didn’t think right for it. 

            Lin was advancing well on all counts and had the potential to surpass the others, but was younger and lacked the experience to be more than simply competitive – what he had, the reason why Jake had wanted Sobrie in charge of the others, was the ability to look everything over and swiftly determine optimal asset placement for ideal outcomes.  He had the confidence and charisma to make others follow through in the moment even if they questioned it later.  So long as someone he pointedly knew to be a few tiers ahead of him in skill didn’t actively try intimidating him, he was steady as bedrock.  But then Marakesh thought intimidation tactics were _endearing_ , and if he had her as backup, even that didn’t work.  And Lincoln was only going to continue growing into his own. 

            _So if I’m technically off the board,_ he decided, _I want Mailin as the biggest bruiser between Relena and an assailant, at least most nights._   He was still going to _be_ there, but this needed to be designed to only count him as a boon, not an asset.  Otherwise he’d burn out eventually, then the guilt would tear him to pieces, and he really didn’t need to do that again.  A closed loop outside his chain of command was for the best – and it wasn’t like they wouldn’t obey him if he demanded it.  The three leading officers played into each other like a well-oiled machine in a way he hadn’t seen in years, and he was fucking _proud_ of having brought them together, without even touching on the rest of the Guard. 

            _In a few more years, they’ll be calling it the Queensguard._  He couldn’t help but smirk.  _If not sooner._  

            _So._   If they gave Mai relatively free reign to plot with Hayden and Illian on the second floor layout, so long as Relena got final veto rights, he couldn’t see this going poorly.  Polanski had a tendency to approach defense with the severity of a precision platform gamer, and the other two would indulge that without letting it _actually_ turn into friendly fire. 

            He liked it a little too much to care if it was overkill – they were doing it.  “I’ll talk to them once we’re dressed.” 

            Relena made a thoughtful noise.  “How much do you think we could get done before we’re done touring this time?” 

            “That’s hard to say without that first conversation.”  If he wasn’t concerned about security, he could get it done faster than she might think possible, but he still didn’t want anyone outside knowing the final layout, and that tied things up significantly.  “If we don’t alter much, it might go as fast as a week, but the more I think about it, the less I think that’ll be the case.” 

            She grinned.  “You’re giving Mai and Leia both a chance to interior decorate, aren’t you?” 

            He hadn’t really thought about that, but Mai had done a good enough job last time.  As for Leia…  _Well, so long as Mai has final say, sure, why not?_   He trusted Leia for fashion sense, but that often didn’t translate to interiors.  Mai wouldn’t let her put throw pillows or figurines everywhere, if she was prone to that sort of thing.  “Unless you have any objections?” he offered. 

            She shook her head ruefully.  “Do we have the permits for all this already?  Or budget?  You’ve been fairly reticent about that lately.” 

            _That’s because you still think we **have** a budget._   He’d been hoping to see if she would put it all together on her own at lunch tomorrow, though; it seemed… appropriate.  _A hint instead?_   An implication, at any rate.  “It’s my house; I don’t need anyone’s permission if I want to remodel.” 

            She sent him a skeptical look as she pulled a set of casual clothes out of his suitcase for him and padded back over to her chair.  “Is it, now?” 

            “Since the end of April,” he confirmed.  It had been an easy sale, abandoned as it was, with him ready to gut it anyhow.  He’d been more concerned with the property size and location than if he’d need to tear anything down.  And he had – two of the outbuildings hadn’t been worth the effort of saving more than the foundations, and they hadn’t had the need for the extra space yet.  _Though now…_   “I think I we should either remodel one of the old ballrooms for additional apartments, or start another building for them; maybe both.  If we keep moving in the direction we have been, the guard will continue expanding to have inner and outer circles, and we’ll want the second floor to only be the innermost – civilian and lower clearance levels that we still want to keep close should be housed elsewhere.”  If they were already going to have workers on the second floor, they might as well get two birds with one stone.  For an outbuilding, the security didn’t have to be nearly so tight, but within the center of the complex itself- 

            “Jake?”  He met her eyes.  “You _own_ Sarracenia?” 

            He smirked.  “Outright, yes.” 

            “It’s not a Regime base?” 

            “It has all the permits and licensure to function as one, but no,” he confirmed.  “It’s private property.” 

            “I told you I wanted to move out of my brother’s shadow,” she continued slowly as she sat again.  “So you bought me a _palace_.” 

            Technically he’d assumed he’d get it back eventually when she regained Newport City and Sanc Palace, but he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to consider what he’d _do_ with it at that point, so sure.  “The scale seemed appropriate,” he returned, trying not to grin like a fool. 

            She rolled her eyes, leaning back and crossing her legs.  “Please don’t let me make quite so many assumptions in the future.  I feel a fool for it later.” 

            “Of course.”  He wasn’t hiding anything from her anymore, so that would be pointless. 

            She hooked a finger around the delicate chain around her neck to fish out her gundanium pendant.  “How much did this cost?” 

            _Now that’s just rude._   His lips twitched as he fought to suppress another smirk.  “Enough.” 

            Scoffing, she sat up again and tossed his clothes in his face.  “Be that way.  I’m going to shower before we have company again.” 

            It was tempting to join her, but by her body language, she meant a _quick_ shower, and they’d get too distracted for that if he followed.  Besides, if Dave really was up in arms about something, he ought to check it out – his phone would probably at least turn on now.  “Alright.” 

            “Am I going to have to set another deadline for you to explain all this?” 

            Relena’s tone was as much curious as exasperated, which he appreciated.  “Already holding myself to tomorrow, love.”  If she didn’t see it for herself, he’d explain in the afternoon. 

            Her smile was dazzling as she came closer and leaned over to kiss him.  “Good.”  She rested one hand on his chin for a long moment, eying him contentedly, before smiling again and turning back towards the bathroom.  “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be ready to work out our latest tangle,” she announced. 

            He watched until she turned the corner into the bath suite and shook his head a little, considering the clothes she’d chosen – casual jeans and t-shirt.  She hadn’t picked up any of his weaponry, though, so he set the outfit down on her chair and padded back across the room to dig out his holsters.  He hadn’t been wearing most of them when arriving at the club on Sunday, what with the suit Dorothy had made for him fitting like a damn glove, and then he hadn’t been in much beyond sleep pants and undershirts while closeted away, so his princess wouldn’t have known where to start. 

            It might be amusing the first time they were intimate on a normal day and she had to strip him of his arsenal as well as clothes.  It seemed like the kind of thing she might giggle her way through, peeling away his layers. 

            He took his time putting himself back together, reigning in his mind at the same time.  Underclothes, holsters and their contents, pants and shirt, shoulder rig and sidearm, hoodie.  He’d never taken his grounding bands off his right wrist – going without them at this point would almost be like having his tattoo removed, for all that he hadn’t done any circuitry work he might need them for in over a year.  He’d brought both his sapphire and diamond studs, and he put one of each in his ear before lacing up his boots and picking out a casual outfit for Relena to spend the evening in. 

            Des and Lu had always talked about finding contentment, the heart of your personal inner peace, and he’d thought he understood.  This, though…  Routine motions had always soothed him, but this was different; he thought he might finally _get_ why they harped on the concept so much, if this was what it felt like.  It was like the smooth glide of combat only without the adrenaline, without the artificial calm his uncle had drilled into him before memory started.  No strife driving it forward, just… existing in the middle of a sea as smooth as glass. 

            It felt _good_. 

            Looking around, he debated if there was anything else left to do before shrugging and moving back to the nightstand.  The readout on his screen said his battery was at twenty-eight percent now so he booted it up, watching the opening animations run as he debated what trouble Dave could’ve run into that would have been upsetting enough to rock the boat, yet not urgent enough for the Guard to break the last few days’ peace.   Nothing in particular came to mind; at least, nothing bad.  Mai said he’d talked about Des cornering him, which might make sense if he had news and Jake was non-responsive like he supposed he had been since Sunday… 

            He smiled as an idea occurred to him.  _Did Lu finally contact him?_   He doubted it, seeing as the Noin household was still under Regime surveillance and she had avoided them thus far, but it would be a pretty fantastic way to round out an already amazing week.  _The sooner we can wrestle Zechs solidly out of the picture, the sooner she’ll come forward._   She and Des had always been very close, and it was going to eat away at her, missing the developmental milestones Lyle would be going through over the next year.  Now that he’d finished clearing loyalties within Sarracenia he wished there was a way to make it clear to her that it was safe to approach, but he couldn’t do that without causing a world of other trouble… if she would even believe it in the first place.  Dorothy was a viable inlet for her to test the waters, but while _he_ knew that, the Romefeller Heiress was as capricious as ever to the public and had a bad history with his old friend besides.  He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to avoid Treize, provided she was aware of his survival, so that cut Mitchell out of the loop even if she had a way to reach him alone…  

            For all that he thrived in it, he was _really_ starting to get sick of espionage, both acute and political.  He was one of the best and Relena would need those talents in the years to come, and he was more than happy to apply his ill-gained talents to the _good_ of humanity… but this was just one big mess.  Fucking people over with a grin while they looked the other way was a lot more fun when your own emotional wellbeing wasn’t on the line. 

            The stock photo on his lock screen popped up, announcing the date and time, and he gave it a moment to finish loading… then stared incredulously. 

-

**_33 missed calls_ **

**_17 voicemail messages_ **

**_57 unread texts_ **

**_73 emails_ **

-

            _What the hell?_   The email he’d expected, he funneled a _lot_ through there, and Mai had said he had voicemail waiting, but what the _fuck_?  He tapped out his pin and opened the calls folder – a few Belgian numbers on Monday morning and one from Des that night, possibly when the phone still had a charge.  Then Tuesday, nothing until ten in the morning, then a _ton_ from both Des and _Jack_ through the rest of the day and into this morning. 

            If they had all been from Des, he would worry that there was a crisis that the staff had overlooked, but while Des and Jack were good friends, there wasn’t a single crisis he could think of that would have _Jack_ frantically trying to get a hold of him.  Hell, the only thing Jack had to talk to him about right now would be if he had to reschedule their lunch – his old man preferred to say important things in person anyway.  And besides, if Des had pulled David into this too and it _was_ serious, the boys would have either interrupted him or handled the problem themselves.  It didn’t make sense. 

            Backing out to his home screen, he debated for a moment before dragging down the notifications and hitting voicemail.  Mai had emphasized the voicemail as his first step, and if the calls were mostly from his fathers, both literal and practical, he wouldn’t need to listen to more than a handful to get an idea of what was going on.  So he sat down on the bed and tapped out another pin. 

            _“First message, sent Monday, October twenty-eighth, at eight twenty-three am…”_  

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base – Officer’s Quarters**

            “So long as you’re not going to accomplish it by robbing Adam this time,” Lucrezia murmured in amusement as she settled at her table. 

            “It’s not a list of things you’re asking me for,” Odin reiterated from his seat on the bed, untying the laces of his right boot.  “It’s an idea map of what you’d _like_ for future use in a perfect scenario.” 

            “Yes, but see, the last time I meant it like that, you took me seriously,” she pointed out.  “And you haven’t promised to not rob our ally blind given the opportunity.”  He had a history with this. 

            Odin rolled his eyes, shifting his leg out in a stretch.  “I’m not going to rob Adam behind his back.” 

            “Cute.”  As far as she was aware, he hadn’t _ever_ done it without making it perfectly obvious who was at fault. 

            He grinned wolfishly.  “It all belonged to Trowa.  Who he refuses to identify as.  We talked about it.” 

            Lu snorted and grabbed a notebook.  “I somehow doubt he’s aware of what details he _didn’t_ cover with you. 

            Odin grinned back at her, though it turned into a grimace as he stretched.  “I have no plans to stage an intervention on Adam’s hoarding.” 

            _Ouch.  Not wrong, but ouch._   “You doing alright there?”  He hadn’t been limping earlier, but he tended to hide it.  She’d been focused enough on Rashid that she might have missed it. 

            “Fine.  Just stiff; if I let it stay this way, it’ll turn into a problem.” 

            “Does weather affect you?”  She couldn’t imagine it _didn’t_ , but still. 

            He shrugged, shifting positions.  “Maybe?  There’s a lot of little things that add or subtract, and it’s not exact… there’s almost a luck aspect to it.  Sometimes it’s fine when all the factors say it shouldn’t be, and sometimes the reverse happens.  I don’t really pay enough attention to the weather most of the time to know… and what would be the point, anyway?  This is Earth.  And even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t bother hacking the mainframe  to shift things around.  Even if I knew what I was doing, it’s not a big enough difference to be worth the effort.”  He gripped his thigh just above the knee in a way that looked like it would bruise, neck taut as he slowed down his breathing, concentrating.  “It hasn’t gotten bad outside of extended exercise since I finished post-surgical PT in March, so that counts for something.” 

            Lucrezia nodded, watching him move back into the same stretch he had started with – he was obviously doing the physical therapy he’d just referred to, and they were the same motions she’d seen him move through more easily in the past.  All things considered, it was still a young injury; especially if he’d had surgery less than a year ago.  She didn’t remember her father ever putting so much time to his leg, but he’d been living with it for eight years before she’d been born…  And Des Noin’s career had been carried by statistical and management skill, not soldiering.  He’d never let himself get too badly out of shape, but he’d never been an athlete either. 

            “If there’s something you _do_ have an immediate need for,” he announced after a moment, “I have Adam’s permission to make space so long as I let him know what he’s low on.”  He snickered again.  “He asked me to lay out his movements during the war so he could try finding more old sites.” 

            “You can’t really talk,” she pointed out, settling her weight on her elbows and watching him.  “Audi told me how your tendency to ‘geocache’ isn’t limited to Zero drives.” 

            “Yeah, but that’s _resources_ ,” Odin argued.  “I keep money caches or valuables, conspicuous tools, spare clothes, and medical supplies as much as back-up weapons.  He only does it with _artillery_.” 

            “That does seem a little short-sighted.”  She wasn’t exactly surprised, given how Trowa had been during the war.  All the same, he’d taken Xu through several obviously self-made supply depots on their mad run through Europe last year, so at least he was learning.  She shook her head.  “I don’t need anything for now – it’s relatively quiet with the majority of the army in space but still ripe to return if we make true trouble.  We have a contract with the Chinese that protects us here for now, but if we push it too far, they’ll revert entirely to non-involvement, and we’re not powerful enough to handle the Eastern States _and_ the Regime without that buffer.  If we engage the Regime too directly in Europe, Romefeller will try their luck sliding across the Red Sea.  If we try concentrating on Romefeller, we’ll have to pull back on our involvement in Europe, where we’re finally starting to make a dent. 

            “Even if we weren’t looking at two fronts, I’m not sure we could handle the Middle East and India.  The first year after _Libra_ , Sally was just trying to gather us up and keep us alive, and last year, we were mostly fighting for the footholds we have in both continents now.  Since March, we’ve been caught up trying to consolidate two separate power bases, and we’ve made good progress, but the split attention shows.” 

            He nodded thoughtfully.  “How much of it’s manpower versus resources?” 

            Lucrezia grimaced.  “Technically, both.  When you first showed up, we were just starting to get enough people trained to match our equipment.  Now, we’ve got more people than we know what to do with, especially since we started screening Cambyses survivors.  In some ways, recruitment’s been easier in Africa all along because they dropped so many Americans here, and we don’t have to be half as covert to operate under the Regime’s nose so far south, but it’s not exactly open enrollment.  We only want people who can get the job done and keep their mouths shut… and if they’re any good, we send them up north for more active work, because the east is a goddamn sleeping bear.” 

            She sighed, dropping her pen and leaning back in her chair with her hands to her head.  “They’re going to wake up eventually, and the way everything’s shuffled out, if we don’t control the majority of Europe by the time they do, there’s a fair chance they can roll right over us, gundam or no.  They might not have the Mad Five, but I doubt they ceased MS development over the past few years, and you can’t put a genie back in the bottle.  The one good thing Zechs managed was the destruction of their spaceports, which keeps them locked down.  The area is resource rich _enough_ ; if they’d had access to asteroid mining or any of the zero-G dependent material synthesis?”  The idea made her stomach turn.  It was hard to figure out everything that was going on over there, but they at _least_ could confirm that there was no interstellar travel taking place, there or in the majority of Asia. 

            It didn’t completely rule out interstellar _trade_ , because they did still have ties into Europe, but it minimized the risk, and Relena had made impressive strides on controlling the darker aspects of Romefeller’s black market.  That wasn’t even touching on her careful cultivation of the European branches that Zechs had never done more than intimidate into sullen obedience.  To all appearances, the Princess was effectively indoctrinating or culling the power bases of her opponents with little more than smiles and brutal economic maneuvering. 

            She had to have picked that up from Jake.  Or maybe Dorothy, initially, but she refused to believe that Jake hadn’t refined that talent into the precise scalpel Relena was wielding now.  Her charge had still been fumbling with subtlety in Sanc – the girl’s use of political influence as a blunt _club_ had nearly brought her to tears on at least one occasion. 

            “So we’re defining Romefeller as its Middle Eastern and Asian branches?” Odin clarified. 

            Lucrezia nodded.  “Zechs did a decent job of declawing Europe and Africa when he founded the Regime, but he needed the others too much to risk castrating them.”  She rolled her eyes.  “If he even _could_ have, with all the Virgos he lost in the battle Christmas Eve.  They and China were the only people who could have put forward more than a token effort to fight him off post-Fall, and he couldn’t afford the open hostility then any more then than he can now.  So long as he both had Dorothy and it was clear that Treize’s blood wasn’t directly on his hands, he had legitimacy enough to make most of Romefeller take him seriously.  The Weridges haven’t seen significant power in their family since their fallout with the Dermails almost ninety years ago, but a good part of why they were willing to accept Relena as Queen was because a Weridge _has_ held a stranglehold on the rest of the Foundation before.  Pointedly, _the last time they made an alliance with the Catalonias_.  And Catalonia history has repeatedly proven that they are _the_ worst enemy to make.”  As in ‘we might massacre you and everyone you associate with for crossing us’ history. 

            “So now that Relena has Dorothy, _she_ has the legitimacy,” Odin interpreted. 

            “On top of everything she’s made for herself, yes.  It makes it look like Dorothy was never doing anything but waiting in the wings for Relena to take center stage, even, and that Zechs was holding them both hostage until both Heiress and Princess somehow blackmailed him into dropping the house arrest.”  _Hell, it might even be the truth._   Dorothy had always been slippery as an eel, but there was no denying she had a damn near _obsessive_ streak when it came to Relena.  Her defection to White Fang had always smelled like poorly planned espionage to Lucrezia, and Zechs certainly hadn’t reaped the benefits Relena was now gaining from alliances with the European nobility. 

            Shifting to a new stretch, Odin jerked his chin at the table.  “So, what would you need to tackle Romefeller?” 

            _Relena._   Relena and everything she brought with her by default.  An assurance that Treize wasn’t going to play boogeyman again and slide in to steal a victory at the last moment, but she doubted anyone, even Jake, could guarantee that. 

            She closed her eyes, thinking.  Given a little more time, Relena would only win more of Europe, and what she couldn’t win, she might be able to quietly strangle.  Jake stood as a clear bridge between the Princess and Treize, though to all appearances, they were still moving entirely independent of each other – that could be due to either ignorance or choice, so no help there.  With Jake and the way things had been going so far though?  In all likelihood, the situation with Treize would be settled one way or another before Lucrezia could successfully make contact with Relena.  So that, at least, was something she probably didn’t have to consider. 

            The Sweepers were convinced that the hidden parties of the Winner Corporation were funding Treize’s romp through space, and she trusted Howard’s opinion on that.  He wasn’t one hundred percent, but close enough that it hardly mattered if he only had part of the picture.  The space dynasties – what was left of them, at least – weren’t bucking the saddle this time, and given the dissatisfaction of the latest Winner generation with their own laws, they were probably interested in changing the status quo.  _Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,_ Lucrezia mused, _and there are a **lot** of gypped women in that family._   Sally had it right; at least for now, Treize could handle space.  It left them with the far less appealing but _more important_ task of recovering Earth. 

            “I need two damn armies,” she decided after a moment.  “I need forces to equal what the Regime sent to space without splitting what I have.  If I have superior weaponry, Tauruses and gundams, I can stretch it a lot further, but I still need enough boots and suits to hold secure borders, which I can’t do on either continent yet.”  She pursed her lips.  “And whenever we take power in Europe, it has to be _fast_ , on the same speed as Operation Daybreak, or Romefeller has a decent chance of rearing up before we can finish the amputation.  We need to be ready for their retaliation after that, and it _can’t_ be a stalemate, or anything close to it.  If we don’t make it clear that it’s not worth the cost of the invasion, we’ll be at war for another five years, and I won’t be party to that.” 

            _Not again._   Most of her father’s generation was _gone_ , her grandfather hadn’t lived past twenty-five, and the Noins were nothing in the grand scheme of things.  “It would take me another four years at the _least_ to train enough pilots to match the required numbers for those confrontations, and I won’t use dolls.  Zechs widowed over two hundred thousand and massacred another three billion on Earth with a crew of three hundred in eight hours because he had a _half destroyed_ army of Virgos.  That can stand as testament to why we don’t automate war for the rest of time.”  She rubbed at her face.  “We need something else.” 

            Odin watched her, eyes intent.  No argument.  If he and the other gundam pilots hadn’t been whittling away at the Virgo army for almost three weeks before Treize showed up, barely catnapping while Howard’s crew patched up the suits before going out again, no one else would’ve ever had a chance at all.  She remembered how tired they had been…  God, Duo had literally walked into a wall _and started an argument with it_ before realizing it wasn’t a person, ten days in.  Heero had apparently mastered a form of waking REM when push came to shove but had a tendency to talk absolute gibberish when he did it, and Quatre had proven he could sleep literally anywhere so long as he could pull one knee to his chest. 

            Wufei she was less sure of, since it had only taken one incident of him pulling a _saber_ on the person trying to wake him up before they did more than blare the hull breech alarm in his room and hope he could be bothered.  Trowa had only come back with Heavyarms five days before Treize and the army arrived.  _Or Adam, I suppose._   His new life had started by then, even if he hadn’t chosen a name for it yet. 

            No one needed to tell Odin why war wasn’t worth the cost.  Sometimes, you just didn’t have a fucking choice anyway.  But _this_ , at least…

            “A military take-over will take too long – it has to be peaceful.  We need Relena to take the reigns, then move in to back her before Romefeller realizes we’re laying an ambush.  Relena needs her power base more deeply rooted and her brother removed in a way that can’t be construed as her own doing before she can pull that off.  She’s been building a personal court since leaving Brussels, and it’s going well, but it needs to be more absolute.  The neutral zones need to either fall under her control entirely or become independent enough to be trouble – they _have_ to be unappealing enough that Romefeller won’t just plough right through them because Relena holds the greater prize and they believe they can take her and force the democracies to surrender afterwards.” 

            Odin relaxed, leaning back on the bed with his hands supporting his weight.  “So our priority is to expand Relena’s command radius without anyone realizing until after we’ve reached the tipping point.” 

            “More than anything, yes,” she agreed.  “That’s why we’ve done all these little hit and runs, the espionage, the theft and sabotage – for a while, the weaker the militant might of the Regime and the higher the economic gain, the more freedom of movement Zechs gave her – she was _that_ good of PR.  That stopped after the riot in Amsterdam last year, and we were only a few months out from having a decent fighting force anyway – we changed tactics.  The last time you were here, she unofficially took control of his Department of Defense, blackmailed them into a retreat, and soothed the Chinese – and gained a Ministry as a result.  I’d say we should find another way to spur something like that on again, but if she rises any higher in the _official_ ranks she’ll be seen as a threat, and people might start trying to get in the way.” 

            “Relena’s always been a threat,” Odin muttered dryly. 

            “More fools them,” Lucrezia agreed, eying the way his shirt stretched tight across his chest, hitching enough so it _almost_ showed his abs as he lounged like a cat on her bed.  It made for an image, at any rate. 

            By the glint in his eyes, he noticed the extra attention; his lips twisted in a predatory sort of smirk.  All the same, he stayed on topic.  “I still want an armament wish list; include manpower caps in a few categories if you have to.  I can talk to Sally about the rest.” 

            “Fine.”  She didn’t really feel like it right now, though.  “How long are you here?” 

            “Ideally, less than twenty-four hours.  I need to get back to Europe as soon as it’s feasible, which at this point means I leave in the morning.” 

            _I have all night then.  Plenty of time._   The sun wasn’t even down yet.  “In that case,” she decided, standing and moving over to stand between his legs.  “I have an idea.” 

            He smirked at her, not moving as she leaned in close, resting one palm on either side of him.  “Mm?” 

            “Mmhmm.”  She pressed her lips against the spot behind his ear and held in a laugh when his arms started to tremble.  Shifting back to look him in the eyes – which were mostly black instead of blue now, and wasn’t _that_ interesting – she smiled impishly.  “I think you’ll like it.” 

            “Sounds promising.”  His voice had gone rough. 

            Pulling away, she bit back a laugh at his startled blink.  “I need to swim some laps, clear my head.”  She pulled out the swimsuit she’d left in the dresser here, along with the shorts he’d claimed out of the uniform stock the last time he’d been in Sudan.  “But I figure you’d prefer the hot tub.” 

            Odin let out a soft grunt as he collapsed back onto the bed.  “Of course.”  His voice was as flat as before _Libra_.  “That was exactly what I thought you were talking about.” 

            Lucrezia snickered, grabbing towels and setting them on the table before settling next to him to unlace her boots.  “I didn’t say it was the _only_ idea I had.” 

            His eyes were closed now, and he raised his arms up over his head in an idle sprawl, ignoring her.  “Hn.” 

            She toed off her right boot and started on the left.  “Maybe I just want to make sure you’re at your best, later,” she offered, smirking as he tensed at the more sultry tone she’d used.  “You know,” she continued, watching him.  “Feeling better, all limber.” 

            He was looking up at her now, eyes sharp, for all that they were still more pupil than anything.  She bit her lip without thinking, and he smiled, dangerous again.  “Really.” 

            _Damn._   She pointed at him reproachfully.  “You said you wanted critical thinking out of me,” she warned, letting go of her shoelaces to scoot a couple inches away from him.  “That won’t help.” 

            He sat back up on one elbow, smile widening into a grin.  “You already needed to clear your head.”  He darted a hand out to the front of her pants and dragged her to him.  She managed to not squeal – barely – and he laughed low in his throat as he avoided a steel toe in his bad shin at her surprised flail.  “Careful.”  Wrapping a hand around her thigh, he dragged it down her leg, which did _delicious_ things, and it was only when he stopped that she realized he almost had her boot the rest of the way off. 

            _Damn._   “You’re a little too good at this,” she muttered, shoving the collar of his jacket away from his neck to run her teeth along it. 

            He let out an appreciative hum as her boot hit the floor and he dragged his hand back up, slipping under the back of her shirt and starting to fiddle with her bra strap.  “Are you complaining?” 

            _Hell no._   “Do I _look_ like I’m complaining?”  Nibbling along his jaw, she started trying to struggle out of her t-shirt. 

            His laughter was a little more helpless than sexy this time.  “I can barely _see_ right now.  How do you do that?  It always happens, I can’t make them go back-” 

            Well, that was fun.  She’d never met anybody who could get _that_ hot and bothered; or at least, none that would admit it, if they did.  “Shut them,” she suggested, getting one arm free and deciding that was good enough, rocking her hips forward. 

            “No.”  Twisting sharply, he rolled so they lay along the bed instead of across it and he was above her, then tugged off his shirt and coat in one sharp motion before diving his hands back under her clothes.  “I’ll figure it out.” 

            “Sure you will,” she murmured, grabbing him by the back of his neck and yanking him down.  “Let me know how that goes.” 

            That low chuckle was back…  and really, that was enough talking. 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base – Corridors**

            _This is amazing,_ Marie decided, trailing one hand along the wall as she wandered, alone now.  Abdul had led her around the compound before they’d run out of stuff to talk about and he had to get back to his job, but there were _miles_ to wander in here.  It was bigger than the base her grandfather had tried to run his rebellion out of, and that hadn’t been small.  _You really can build anything as big as you want, on Earth._   It was something she’d obviously known for a while now, but most of the time, she only saw the pretty stuff.  Skyscrapers and temples and art. 

            This was sheer _utility_.  Colony style thinking, home on Earth and scary big. 

            _I love it._  

            “You lost?” 

            Marie turned and smiled brightly at the boy who’d come up at an intersection behind her.  “Only if I had somewhere I was supposed to be,” she quipped.  “Abdul left me near the cafeteria, but I wasn’t really hungry, so I thought I’d see what I could get up to.”  She was over her nausea now, but food still sounded kinda gross, so bleh.  If nothing else, she had snacks in their bags, which Odin had taken with him when he left the infirmary.  If she missed out, she could make do. 

            The boy frowned a little, then shrugged, starting to come towards her.  “I was heading to the gym for some practice.  Are you new, or a transfer?” 

            “Mm…” Marie waggled her fingers at him.  “My brother and I are allies, I guess?  He runs point with Lucrezia now and then, and sometimes I get to tag along.  This is the first time I’ve been here, though, and he hasn’t since…  I guess it was July.”  She’d seen the gym earlier, but more of a glance through the door than anything before Abdul dragged her off to the next area.  “You mind if I come?” 

            He made a face, but shrugged too, so she didn’t take it as a no.  “Why not, so long as you can prove what you just said.  You’re calling the General and Commander by their first names, which is weird, but one of them ought to be down to supervise spars soon if no one else recognizes you.” 

            She made a face too.  He didn’t believe her, which was lame, but she couldn’t really blame him.  “Fair enough,” she agreed gamely, moving to walk alongside him. 

            He glanced at her sideways.  “You spar at all?” 

            “Eh, with my brother.”  She wasn’t sure if the tussle and shove crap they did counted, but she’d taken out Hilde, right?  Still, that kind of thing usually had rules and stuff.  “Nothing formal.” 

            He looked disappointed.  “Just hand to hand?” 

            Not too often anymore, unless it was really spur of the moment while standing in line somewhere.  “And batons.”  They’d stopped using the really light ones that only stung if you followed through too hard in June, though the practice ones were small enough to be more like knives.  He hadn’t let her carry more than a utility knife until she’d proven she could keep a good grip as well as her stance when he was coming at her.  “Knife practice stuff,” she added, just to be clear.  “And guns, but you said spar, so.”  She’d totally pistol whip someone who startled her if she had a gun out, Odin had shown her how to do it without hurting her hand, but that would be rude in a play fight. 

            He looked a little more cheerful at that.  “You any good?” 

            Marie wrinkled her nose.  “Not against him.”  Should she mention the Hilde thing?  _Probably not._   She was pretty good at dodging and backing out of range on the dime, but almost nothing ever connected with Odin.  _Still, it’s **Odin**.  _ And the Hilde thing had totally happened, and there’d been that lame creep in Amsterdam on the way to Amos’ school, right?  Duo and Skye had insisted she was totally badass in Rotterdam, but that was guns, not footwork. 

            _It could be fun, though._   “Why, you offering?” 

            He grinned brightly at her.  “Why not?”  He gave her a surprised sort of look.  “You’re not underestimating me.” 

            It wasn’t a question, but she wasn’t sure how to take it either.  “Uh, no?” 

            “Most people do.” 

            “Most people are stupid.”  Being underestimated was a _goal_ – why would you do that to yourself?  Odin didn’t look like much, and now when people looked twice at her, it _wasn’t_ because they thought she could fight.  It was kinda annoying, actually, being noticed in the first place, but…  Well, it wasn’t going to go away, so she’d better figure out how to work with it.  “How long have you been sparring?” 

            He shrugged.  “I dunno.  Forever?  Hand to hand, at least, I don’t really remember.  My dad started me on swordplay when I was eight and he stepped it up after the Fall and we had to move to freaking _Africa_ , so… four years?  Getting close to five.  I’ll be thirteen in February.” 

            So…  Sword-fighting versus gun version of Odin, her age.  _Crap._   Well, you had to learn somehow.  “You’re going to wipe the floor with me, aren’t you?” 

            The boy laughed, eyes sparkling.  “I wasn’t gonna _say_ it.  Still want to?” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “Sure, why not.  I’m Audi, by the way.” 

            “Yasa.” 

-

***

-

**October 31 st 198 – Thursday – Zurich, Switzerland**

            “Sorry about the other day,” Lin offered with a grimace, leading the two men into the new hotel Daniella had brought everyone through this morning.  Security was actually good enough that it had been difficult to slip Relena through unnoticed so her younger lookalike could change back into her own clothes – which was irritating, but nice too.  He wasn’t going to let his guard down, but the extra effort was a pleasant sort of security blanket. 

            The colonel was obviously rubbing off on him.  But, seeing as he technically had Jake’s job now, that was a good thing.  He was perfectly fine with gaining the black ops espionage skills without living through the sort of hell you usually gained them from.  Given the sheer magnitude of the career he’d landed, he wasn’t going to turn away any edge he could gain – in the future, it might really _be_ a matter of life or death. 

            “How about you don’t do it again?” Des offered in an overly gracious tone. 

            Lin rolled his eyes.  “I don’t write protocol, so that’s something you have to take up with the Princess.”  Well, technically now he _could_ , but he wouldn’t.  “I didn’t like shutting you down, but you wouldn’t give me a straight reason for why I should disobey orders, so I couldn’t even weigh the spirit against the letter of the law.  I know you’re close to him, but unless he _says_ you have the authority to overrule that kind of hush order, you’ve got to throw me a damn bone.  He trusts my judgment – it’s kinda pointless if you don’t trust _his_.” 

            _And now you’re going to have to start trusting **me** as the final authority on what does and doesn’t fly, and you need to get used to that._   Jake was a permanent fixture in Princess Relena’s life and would always have final say, the same as Lena, but as of six days ago, he wasn’t responsible for her. 

            “He’s right,” Jack pointed out, glancing self-consciously around the lavishly decorated lobby as they moved towards the executive elevator. 

            “Dave technically _has_ that right, and knowing Jake, he’ll probably give it to you if you ask,” Lincoln added as he held up his keycard and pressed the button.  Even with that, though, he hadn’t been able to _explain_ why no one could come to the phone – Relena didn’t care to speak with reporters about her personal life any sooner than absolutely necessary, and that meant not talking about it where he could be overheard.  Phones were too easy to tap. 

            “He’s okay, though?” Jack asked somewhat anxiously.  “He’s not…?” 

            That, at least, he could answer directly.  “He’s walkin’ on fucking sunshine,” he announced bluntly.  “Dripping sheer joy everywhere.  It would be disgusting if it wasn’t absurdly adorable.”  _And a welcome relief from the gloom of the past year._   Jake had been better since getting home from space – he’d even gotten all the way back to the man who had recruited him the week before telling the rest of the house about Treize.  Leading up to the masquerade shenanigans, the colonel had been happier than Lin had ever seen.  He’d been looking forward to seeing more of that in the days to come.  He’d even debated with the others if the upswing would continue as everything stabilized – but _this_? 

            He’d never _imagined_ he’d see the broody, sarcastic colonel so utterly blissed out as he’d come out of that suite last night. 

            Part of him was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at the same time?  The guy had just gotten the girl _then_ basically been handed a miracle.  Sure, it was more complicated than that, but you didn’t have to know Jake Miller for too long to realize just how much of the self-loathing he defined himself by was built around the death of his little brother.  Suddenly finding out that he’d been _wrong_ and the kid was alive?  It was probably going to wreak even more havoc in his mental architecture, but hopefully it was the same sort of ‘burn that shit down so we can build something amazing’ thing that he’d already been in the middle of with Lena lancing out the secrecy he’d bottled up. 

            It was arguably the best time for this kind of upheaval to have happened.  The man had just come clean with the household and been welcomed back in without a single question.  He’d already been trying to start on a clean slate with Jack.  He and Relena had finished sealing the deal; keeping them from being obvious in view of paparazzi was probably going to be exasperating as fuck, but teasing them until Jake settled the hell down and it went public would probably make up for it. 

            Lin was pretty sure at this point that the resurrection thing was a cherry on top that they could take in stride.  Even if it turned out to be trouble somehow, he didn’t think anything could sink them back to where they’d been in August. 

            “I was worried when he didn’t call back last night,” Des admitted, sounding sullen. 

            “He was going to, before he found out you were going to be here today.”  Lin smirked.  “So I’m going to say that one’s on you.”  He grinned when the older man rolled his eyes and made a flicking gesture at him, and focused on Jack again.  “Are _you_ okay?” 

            The man visibly slumped.  “I have no idea.” 

            **_Please_** _don’t tell me the brooding is genetic._   He winced internally and waved the thought away before it could really take, knowing it was unfair.  As fucked up as Jake was over his brother, the kid was Jack’s _son_ , complicated background or not.  Lin had outlived his parents, and that had been bad enough; he couldn’t even begin to imagine surviving the death of your child. 

            Or, well, believing you had.  _Serious skill set, there._   He stifled the urge to burst out laughing – that might take a while to explain, and wasn’t half as funny out of context anyway. 

            “It’s… kinda crazy,” Lin offered sympathetically as the elevator opened and the three of them got on, waiting for the doors to shut again before tapping his keycard to the sensor and selecting the penthouse.  “Are you actually up for seeing him?”  He could probably come up with something… or at least, improvise an excuse to get the man out of there before he hit critical mass and a fight broke out, if Jack was as close to the edge as he looked.  He didn’t know Jake’s dad well enough to tell if he would be more ‘curl in a ball and have a meltdown’ or spin into ‘kill anything that moves,’ but either way it would go down better if it didn’t happen in front of the colonel.  He was trying to turn over a new leaf, but old habits died hard. 

            “If I’m not, he won’t talk to me again for another year.”  His voice was toneless, almost hollow… emotionally spent. 

            _Fuck that._   “If you’re not, I’ll get Relena to invite you over for Thanksgiving.”  _Actually, that might be a good idea either way._   He wanted to check with Mai and Rome, maybe Mitchell too before suggesting it, but Jack had been by the Brussels base for both New Year’s and Easter this last year, and nothing had gone sideways like that first time.  With Jake’s head now in a much better place, they could set an actual precedent. 

            If he was serious about starting to mend his fences, Jake might even suggest it himself, with the right nudge.  _Mai should imply it._   He was perfectly capable of dropping the hint the right way, but people expected certain things from each of them, and it worked in their favor to play into that. 

            Jack paused, then gave him a confused look.  “You’re having Thanksgiving in Germany?” 

            “Well we can’t exactly have it in New York, can we?”  Truthfully, it had been a long time since he’d bothered, but he also hadn’t been back to the States in almost seven years – that, and his mom had never really made a big deal about it.  When he was little, he remembered being the tagalong to this or that friend’s family supper, but it had always seemed more like an excuse to get together than an actual holiday… and the only family he’d had for most of his life was his mom, who had always been there, right up until she wasn’t. 

            Then there were bills to pay, and dreams to chase, and he hadn’t really found people he’d care much about if he ever saw them again until Jake had roped him into Relena’s retinue.  Honestly, he hadn’t really had the time to _try_ either, he’d thought, and it hadn’t bothered him until he’d found himself doing it recently, despite possibly having even _less_ personal time than when he was working full time and earning his MBA.  Now he sorta wondered where he’d gone wrong with it before; but at the same time, he wouldn’t he _here_ , with these people he _did_ give a damn about if he had attached to anyone when he was a teenager, so he wasn’t too broken up about it. 

            Life had a way of working out.  So long as you could outlast the shitty parts, you’d do fine. 

            Jack was frowning.  “You’re American?” 

            “Technically?”  About as much as Mai could claim she was Australian – his parents had been from there, and they’d said they were American, but he’d grown up in the _Alliance_ , and maybe spent four years in the States if he added up all the different times into one lump.  “What, didn’t the name and flat accent give it away?” 

            “Lincoln was a British name first,” Des pointed out conversationally.  “And most children of Alliance soldiers never develop a native accent.  The aristocracy consciously teach their young to speak differently from the other academy students.” 

            Lin rolled his eyes.  “I never went to military school; just base standard before I earned a full ride into Saint Gallen when I was fourteen.”  He’d had a few other options, but his Swiss and German had been a lot better than his French or Italian at the time, and once he’d landed a job as a supervisor at a sales gig close enough to bike to and from campus, that had sold it.  Collections had started hounding him less than six months after he inherited his mom’s medical debt, and it had been the best way he could figure to get by.  At the time, he’d been upset that he wouldn’t have time for ROTC anymore, but he’d refused to consider the joining the Alliance without a degree under his belt – enlisted had too long a history as cannon fodder. 

            In the end, it had been a good thing; he’d seen a few of the ROTC guys he used to know get forced into serving infantry after the gundams started raining down hell.  Getting through the conditioning of basic training after being out of the habit for five years had been a pain, but not the end of the world. 

            _Hah, phrasing._   He raised his eyebrows at Jack – he’d never been able to do the one brow thing.  “You’re running out of time for me to make excuses,” he pointed out, gesturing at the rising numbers on display. 

            His jaw tightened.  “I’m not giving up.” 

            _Well, at least he sounds more alive._   He’d still need to keep on his toes for damage control, but that was hardly new.  “Cool.”  He debated before asking, “This is good news, isn’t it?”  He’d thought that was obvious, but the way Jack was acting… 

            Des frowned.  “Mitchell was concerned that it was a hoax.” 

            **_Oh_** _, that would be **bad**._   Thankfully, they’d already gotten confirmation.  “The bank called to confirm that he passed multiple genetic tests, obvious and subtle, as well as fingerprinting.  We didn’t know until he listened to his voicemail last night, but they were thorough.”  And then Jake had laughed himself silly over the kid’s history without explaining what the fuck was so hilarious.  It wasn’t all that happy a story, so Lin was pretty damn sure he was missing something; that or Jake had just gotten hysterical, but he was mostly sure that wasn’t the case. 

            _Mostly._   They were in uncharted territory, here. 

            Both men visibly relaxed at the news, though Jack curled in on himself a little too, so something else was going on in his head; if he was anything like his son, it probably had to do with perceived guilt.  “I’m pretty sure,” he offered leadingly, “that if Jake couldn’t find him, no one else could have either.” 

            “That’s only part of the issue,” Des agreed candidly. 

            “My brother-in-law,” Jack announced quietly, “had a very _uniquely_ warped psyche.  And Odin stopped even _talking_ to anyone but the boy after I took Jake.” 

            That…  _Oh._   That left open a _lot_ of possibilities.  “We don’t know anything yet,” he reminded him. 

            Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath as they reached the penthouse floor.  “Exactly,” he agreed.  “We don’t know anything at all.”  The doors opened and he strode out first. 

            Des sighed.  “They have such a tendency towards pessimism.” 

            “Normally I’d agree, but I think Jack might hold a monopoly on it today,” Lin argued as he followed.  “And I’m okay with that.”  He looked back over his shoulder.  “What the hell did you do to get named the patron saint of blackmail, anyway?” 

-

***

-

**Salzburg, Austria**

            “Hello?” 

            _“So I’m going to be running late.”_  

            Quatre snorted.  He’d honestly assumed, but he hadn’t expected his friend to come out and say it either.  “Lucrezia?” 

            Odin snickered.  _“Not like **that**.  But yes.”_  

            He shook his head, amused in spite of himself.  “Uh huh.” 

            _“I said I was going to Europe, and Audi made a friend who needed an ride.  I was already heading to Prague tomorrow, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”_  

            Well, that sounded more legitimate, at least.  “He couldn’t get his own ride?” 

            A younger, more muffled voice came through the line.  _“It’s not my fault I look eight!”_  

            _“He really does look eight or nine,”_ Odin agreed, sounding amused.  _“He’s six months younger than Audi, he could do it anyway, but it might stand out.”_  

            “I’m not on speakerphone, am I?” 

            _“No, but I didn’t realize he could hear so well either.  Sorry.  I stepped out.”_   The sharp increase in ambient wind noise confirmed what he’d thought – the three of them were on a train. 

            Quatre leaned against the wall next to him.  He’d been about to make a sandwich when the call came in.  “She has twelve-year-old agents?”  The idea didn’t bother him as much as it probably should, considering what _he’d_ been up to when he was twelve, but Noin hadn’t struck him as the type either. 

            _“Mostly just students,”_ Odin returned dismissively.  _“Yasa’s unusual.  A runaway that a few of your old friends found trying to live as a hermit near Tamanrasset October of last year.  They say he was doing a pretty good job of it too, but that there was no reason to let him get so skinny when they could use the extra hands further south.”_  

            Quatre sunk all his weight against the wall, mind racing.  Sure, he’d _thought_ about trying to make south for the mountains like that, but he’d never thought they’d have a realistic chance of _making_ it.  Then again, Tamanrasset was a lot further west than where he’d been… and Adashia had been one hell of a run as it was. 

            Statistically, he’d known there had to be successful runaways, but he’d never been able to _believe_ anyone ever survived an escape. 

            _“Cat?”_  

            Quatre shook his head a little, steadying himself.  “Sorry, just… Wow.  And he’s… sound?”  He wasn’t sure how else to ask, even though that sounded terrible. 

            _“He and Audi are in the middle of a really… animated chess game,”_ Odin noted.  _“It’s like watching…”_  He paused as he realized he didn’t have appropriate code names.  _“Some of the matches we saw our friends play before the Fall.”_  

            An image of Duo and Auda arguing and bantering and both blatantly cheating using the arguments as a cover came to mind.  “Oh dear.” 

            _“Something like that.  We should still make it to Belgrade tonight, but I assumed you’d rather avoid our tagalong.”_  

            Normally, yes, because he didn’t think he was ready to face the judgment of the Maguanacs and seeing any of Po’s people would lead to that, but…  “I need to see that,” he decided.  _A runaway…_   Young, and small, so maybe they hadn’t put in so much effort?  _But skilled enough that **Noin** would send him out to play agent in Europe._  

            He frowned.  “Has he said what he thinks of… people like mine?”  That might be a reason to avoid him.  He’d _deserve_ the scorn of someone who’d actually managed to save himse- 

            _“The most common phrase seems to be ‘those poor bastards,’”_ Odin returned, sounding amused.  _“I was watching him spar with the others after putting Audi through her paces and heard him tease another survivor on base as a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ for only showing up in Sudan after the Strike Force hit.  I had to look it up.”_  

            _Another survivor._   And so casual like that?  “We’re having a long talk when you meet me in Belgrade, before I meet the kid.”  Either Odin was a lot more oblivious than Quatre had been willing to consider, or the two of them were miscommunicating on a really fucking deep level, and that wasn’t okay. 

            _“Yeah, sounds about right,”_ Odin agreed in a throwaway sort of tone… and damn, but he was getting too used to reading the man when talking to him, because talking over the phone was a _lot_ harder than he remembered it being. 

            “Stop picking up speech patterns from the preteens, it’s embarrassing.  I’ll see you tonight.” 

            Odin snickered.  _“Whatever,”_ he returned smugly before hanging up. 

            Quatre groaned, dropping his head back against the wall.  The problem with Odin was that you couldn’t tell when he was genuinely off on the wrong foot or just being a complete _troll_. 

-

***

-

**Zurich, Switzerland**

            “…You’re joking.” 

            “I’m absolutely not,” Jake insisted cheerfully, reaching across the table for the creamer.  “It’s a complete and total fabrication.”  He looked around at them and laughed before starting to wring out his tea bag and setting it aside.  “You should see your faces, shit…  Calm down.” 

            Cassidy was having really mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, Jake was obviously happy as hell, practically bouncing.  The more awkward they got – except Relena, who was only shaking her head and biting back a smile, because either she already knew what the _fuck_ was going on or had gotten even better at rolling with it than before he’d left last spring – the more perversely _gleeful_ the colonel grew, and it was an uncomfortable sort of nostalgia to when he’d first been recruited.  That was great; he’d been worried about the guy regressing back into the abyss of depression the others had reportedly dug him out of just before he came to Sarracenia. 

            On the other, he’d just insisted that his little brother’s life was a forgery. 

            Jack was sitting ramrod straight now.  “But, the genetic tests-” 

            “Oh, it’s him,” Jake dismissed, dropping a cube of sugar into his cup and stirring.  “I talked to the bank, and that’s the one thing I was ironclad about when I set this all up.  I looked up the girl he met at the HTD office too.”  He laughed again, eyes bright, but didn’t bother explaining, just shaking his head before moving on.  “His attitude is fucking Odin reincarnate.  And I got into the bank’s camera feeds before this cycle’s got deleted – he never lets his face get caught on them, and that takes practice.  He’s built right, he moves like me, and whoever the guy was he brought with him, they read each other’s body language like they’ve faced combat together – that’s a _friend_ , not some lawyer he picked up last week.  Who _also_ never looks at the cameras that I know aren’t easy to spot; the Antwerp branch is damn good about it.  He has the skills, the blood, and he’s _comfortable_.  That means a _lot_.”  He snickered again as he poured the creamer.  “But this whole ‘Odin Burton’ thing is a pile of shit.” 

            Lin was frowning.  “It… seemed pretty solid to me.” 

            “I second that,” Mai added, raising a hand for emphasis from her spot near the opposite wall.  “And I have decent experience in this sort of thing.  I started looking as soon as Dave called it in.” 

            “Oh, it’s _beautifully_ done,” Jake agreed, stirring and bringing his cup to his mouth.  “Mm.  Absolutely flawless in all its flaws, damn fine Winner-quality work, and if he’s gotten _that_ good at that it’s no wonder I could never fucking find him, but I know for a fact that Odin Burton didn’t exist in 193.  Odin’s a rare enough name that I had an epiphany moment that summer – Dave and I scoured every database in existence for it and got nothing.  Now we have at least five of those same sources claiming he’s been in their records since late 189.”  He took a longer drink and smirked at them over the rim of the mug.  “That proves it almost as much as the damn blood test.  It’s Junior.” 

            _And explains why Dave thought it was an imposter,_ Cassidy realized. 

            “Ah,” Des realized, coming to the same conclusion.  “I thought he was concerned because of the prize.” 

            “Someone would have to know about that in the first place,” Jake dismissed, shaking his head.  “And other than you, me, Dave, Lu, Treize, and Leia, the only person who could even _guess_ that it might exist would be Junior.”  He rolled his eyes.  “And then because Odin was Odin, there’s a good chance the kid _didn’t_.  Anyone else who might suppose we were left an inheritance would assume that I’d gotten it all at this point, not kept it split in half.” 

            “I don’t think Odin ever understood the concept of money,” Jack announced tiredly, leaning forward on his elbows, head in his hands. 

            “He really didn’t,” Jake agreed, sitting back with his tea in both hands.  “Not in a normal way, at least.  It took years of Treize making me follow embezzlers before I started to get the hang of it.” 

            “Inheritance?” Dorothy asked probingly, setting her own tea down and tucking a piece of hair back behind one ear. 

            Jack shrugged, dropping his hands.  “Odin always had money.  He was an asexual spendthrift drifter who couldn’t understand liking a place enough to want to pay rent for more than a month at a time, let alone a mortgage, but he never blinked when Rhea wanted something that involved dropping ten grand either.  It made me damn uncomfortable when she asked him to cosign on a condo with us when we were expecting Jake and he just _bought_ it outright in her name, but I got over it.” 

            “Wait, what?” Dorothy demanded. 

            Jack made a face, picking up a piece of toast.  “It was just how he was.  And anyway, he was more of a father-in-law than a brother, and Rhea was always a daddy’s girl; he treated her like a princess every chance he got.” 

            _Yeah…_ Cassidy decided, looking around at everyone’s expressions.  _I definitely heard that right._   Lin looked suspiciously like he wanted the ground to swallow him up while he stared a hole into the back of Jake’s head, and Mai was more smug than usual.  He couldn’t see Dorothy’s face from where he was standing, but Relena had her eyes narrowed in a speculative way. 

            The colonel, of course, was ignoring all of them.  “Mm, that reminds me.”  Sitting forward again, he set down his cup and made a pawing sort of gesture at his father as he turned towards him – he was sitting with Relena on one side and Jack on the other.  “It’s been a while, and I meant to ask earlier, but I was distracted.” 

            “Yeah, I figured,” Jack muttered agreeably, setting down his bread and wiping his mouth with a napkin.  “I was surprised you didn’t ask last March.” 

            “I’ve been trying to give you the impression that your tattoo isn’t the only reason I agree to see you every now and again,” Jake argued in a happily conversational tone. 

            “I’d wear short sleeves if I thought you’d keep your shit together,” Jack returned in the same sort of way, wiping off his hands. 

            “I only did that once.” 

            “It was memorable,” Jack groused, starting to unbutton the left cuff of his shirt. 

            Jake winced.  “Yeah…  I guess it would have been.” 

            “What they’re forgetting to mention,” Des inserted in a dry tone from his seat next to Jack, “is that another of Odin’s eccentricities was a distaste for photography, and that the only picture anyone can find of Jake’s mother anymore is in her old DMV records, which looks about as good as most mug shots.” 

            “I had a good album,” Jack pointed out as he started folding his cuff up in neat rows.  “But it disappeared while I served my time.  They sold the apartment before Junior was born, and I never got a straight answer out of Odin about whether he’d stashed my shit somewhere or burned it all.  She really liked the collection I had the artist use to draw this up so it might still exist somewhere, but I have no idea where to start looking.” 

            “I’ve never been able to find anything,” Jake admitted, looking tired for a moment as he watched Jack, not meeting anyone’s eyes. 

            “It’s too bad,” Jack agreed.  “You were about six months old, and some of the shots of you were pretty damn adorable.  Both of my blondes in full traditional get-up, you know?  It was a beautiful day too; the photographer planned it really well.”  Lower arm now bared, he held it out in front of Jake in such a way that Relena could easily see too, smiling softly.  “There.  Rhea Lowe, April 177.  Beautiful, isn’t she?” 

            Dorothy made a small, squeaky noise. 

            “Oh, she _is_ ,” Relena breathed, reaching out to gently clasp the older man’s wrist as she leaned closer.  Cassidy couldn’t see too many details of her face from across the table, but he could make out a windswept woman with long blonde hair sitting at the base of a tree in an intricate blue and white kimono, pink flower petals dancing in the wind.  It was stylized, not just a straight photograph copy; not all the lines matched the pigment, so it looked almost like a traditional Asian watercolor painting… and definitely beautiful. 

            _Rhea Lowe._   He wanted to groan as a few too many things lined up perfectly.  Little details he’d dismissed before as unimportant, but now made him want to smack himself upside the head for not _noticing_. 

            Jake sighed, staring down at the tattoo.  “I wish I’d actually gotten to know her.” 

            “Me too.”  Jack pressed his lips tight together for a long moment, closing his eyes.  “We didn’t…  I don’t know what went so wrong.  She was mad when I got arrested, but it was because I’d been _arrested_ , not…  God, you know her morals were as weird as your uncle’s, she didn’t care how many people would have died if I hadn’t backed out at the last second and left the witnesses I did; she was just mad that I’d been stupid enough to get taken away and said I was never going to see her again.  She’d _say_ shit like that, though – that she never wanted to see me again, then call a week later demanding to know why the fuck I wasn’t home yet.  I thought she was just…”  He swallowed hard, and Cassidy felt like he was intruding when the man opened his eyes and they were wet, so he looked away.  “I never got to see her again.” 

            Jake’s voice sounded choked up too.  “I’m sorry.” 

            “She was just… gone.  I never got to say good-bye.  Odin was annoyed I’d tracked him down, you had no idea he wasn’t your father, and…  God help me, the boy has her skin and eyes but he looked so much like _me_ it was eerie, and she never even _told_ me.  She _named him after me_ and the whole pregnancy she never _picked up the phone to tell me_ when we’d decided we couldn’t have any more because of what happened with you-”  Cassidy looked back up to see him pull away and bury his face in his hands again.  “She was in the hospital for _months_ with you, she shouldn’t have-” 

            “Please don’t finish that sentence,” Jake cut in, sounding sick. 

            “She was supposed to have her _tubes tied_!” Jack snarled.  “Don’t even go there.  I thought she’d already had it done, but I guess not.  That or sometimes it doesn’t work, I don’t know.  Fuck!”  He dropped his head on the table edge, staring at the floor.  “What the _fuck_ , Jake, seriously?” 

            “Can we just pretend I didn’t say anything?” Jake asked, looking like he might actually be violently ill on the table. 

            “God, yes,” Jack grumbled, not moving.  “Just… give me a minute, I can’t…” 

            “Yeah,” Jake agreed, leaning into his lap with one hand over his eyes, half curled in a ball.  “I need to think about something else, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” 

            “ _Stop_ ,” Jack growled out, shoulders going even tighter. 

            “Junior is alive and well and probably doesn’t know about or _want_ either of your drama,” Des announced in a calm, steady voice.  “Jake is honestly _trying_ for the first time in over a decade and it’s probably due to the princess _whose touch he is **relaxing** into _ while she whispers in his ear, and we are surrounded by some very bewildered military personnel who would very much like it if the two of you could both keep your heads on straight.” 

            _Okay..._   He hadn’t met the guy before today, but he could already see why everyone seemed so chill with Noin.  “Hear, hear,” Cassidy mumbled under his breath. 

            “Jake, shut up until you can change the subject.  Jack, you know the kid knows jack shit about anything to do with his mom, and that actually might have been the intelligent choice – neither of you had any say, so _drop it_.  It doesn’t matter, and I’m not in the mood for either of your little blame games today.  Everyone’s sorry and we’re long past the time when there was any _point_ in making the other bleed.”  He took a deep breath.  “Dorothy, be a dear and squint your eyes a little before they manage to pop out, you’re making me nervous.  And someone pass the salt, please.” 

            Lin choked out a snort, then started laughing, doubling over. 

            “Thank-you, Des,” Relena announced, handing the shaker to Dorothy to pass around.  “How long have you known about RLTT, then?” 

            “Since Leia tossed it all back at him in 190 because she was done holding his hand and Lucrezia dragged him through my door in the middle of a panic attack.  They’re bright, but they were still just a bunch of kids figuring shit out and I’m retired, not dead.”  He shook a small amount of salt over his fish and set about pulling it apart again.  “He learned fast enough that I stopped being _involved_ by 191, but it’s not like I was going to forget.” 

            “I _so_ called it,” Mai informed them all happily.  “I’m just trying to figure out why no one else did.” 

            “I’d get responses from the Fund while he was sitting next to me,” Relena protested. 

            “Lena, I love you, but the man does email on his _phone_.  And there’s also such a thing as a time-delayed response – I could probably set something like that up, and I’m _not_ a programmer.  On top of that, you usually had at least a day or two between finishing a proposal with Jake and RLTT answering.  If anything, he writes up a response before you even send it, then dithers for a couple days to keep you from getting too suspicious.” 

            Jake just started _laughing_.  Honest, wheezing, ‘holy shit I can’t breathe’ laughing, toppling into his girlfriend and collapsing onto her lap. 

            “Someone be ready to jab him in the ribs if he starts turning blue,” Des ordered.  “I’m not entirely sure this isn’t some new variant of panic attack.  He was one of those babies who held his breath when he lost his temper, wasn’t he?” 

            “Why can’t I just hate you?” Jack groused tiredly, head still down.  “I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be easy, so why can’t I do it?” 

            “I don’t know, that sounds like a you problem,” Des retorted, taking a bite of his lunch.  “He really was, wasn’t he?” 

            “Why are you asking me something you already know the answer to?”  He sat up, blowing out a deep breath.  He looked back over to the royal couple and shook his head.  “God, but he really is comfortable with her…” 

            “Congratulations,” Des deadpanned.  “We’ve found someone willing to put up with the psycho you helped make.  You will, in fact, probably be a grandfather someday.  Calm the fuck down and eat your sheep.”  Another bite.  “I’d like to talk about something a little less stressful sometime today.” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            Leia held in a sigh as the wail of an alarm sounded through the line.  “That’s your cue.” 

            Her lover let out an aggravated noise.  _“Already, again.  I thought we’d have more time.  I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have-”_  

            “I would talk to you for only two minutes a day, if that’s all I could have,” Leia informed him sharply, before her throat closed.  It had been so _long_ since she had been able to hear his voice…  “I’m not going anywhere this time.  Just come back to me.” 

            _“The next window will be in your dark cycle, Saturday morning,”_ he explained quickly. 

            And he would have all sorts of correspondence to manage in the brief period communications ran live, so there would be little time then, too, but it would be _something_.  “I don’t mind,” she reassured him.  “Even just two minutes.”  She _wanted_ more, but her life had never been fair, and she knew better than to think even being with him could sate that want. 

            He let out another irritated noise.  _“It will be at least ten,”_ he promised.  _“And I’ll write.  I miss you.”_  

            She closed her eyes, trying not to cry.  Every time she said goodbye, even after hearing his voice again, it felt like it might be the last.  “Don’t die,” she whispered.  _I can’t go through that again._   Everything she had done to keep him at arm’s length over the years had been to make sure he _lived_ , and she had nearly drowned in despair after the Fall.  “I love you.” 

            _“And I you,”_ he returned fiercely.  _“I-”_   The alarm grew louder, and he snarled before taking a deep breath and hurriedly adding, _“My letter will arrive before I can call.  I love you.”_  

            The line disconnected. 

            Leia sighed, letting her hands fall into her lap as she tipped her head back and tried to stop crying.  There was no _reason_ to be so emotional; he wasn’t even anywhere near the front lines.  She was just being a damn _teenager_ again, and it was ridiculous, she knew better… 

            But Treize had a way of doing that to her.  He always had. 

            She wished she could be there.  They could be together again, and he could _use_ more doctors on his staff, she even specialized in emergency and trauma; but instead she was once again being kept in a pretty manse away from the center of everything, left to wring her hands.  She couldn’t even _work_ here, and that had been her solace for the past decade, the study and insane hours as she poured her soul into medicine… and now she couldn’t even do that. 

            Treize was waging full-scale war for colonial independence – and wasn’t that a refreshing change – and Marie was off doing who knew what, but likely hip deep with Sally Po’s folk now.  Odin was teaching her everything she would need to survive the world they lived in, and she supported that, but she knew her darling girl well enough to realize just how much like her father she was – when faced with a choice between hiding or using her talents to protect someone else in need, she would never choose the former.  Odin had promised to put it off as long as possible – had point blank told her that he didn’t _want_ Marie to kill – but they both knew it was only a matter of time. 

            She had hoped that she would be able to be there for her, when it happened.  That Odin would be able to scoop her up and bring her home to soothe away the suffering… but that wasn’t going to be possible anymore.  The two of them were going to have to muddle their way through it on their own, and they would manage, but… 

            She had _wanted_ to be there.  She had already missed so _much_ of Marie’s life… 

            It had been foolish to hope that she could be there for her during the teenage years.  Once again, that duty was falling to someone else, and while perhaps Odin might not have been the best choice, he was far from the worst. 

            And Odin…  God, but he looked like _Jake_.  She had nearly gasped when she first set eyes on him again.  She’d never thought too deeply on Odin’s looks beyond the fact that he was typical L1 stock, and she knew she had thought the same of Jake in the past, but the resemblance wasn’t easy to dismiss.  Then all the little things, the way they tipped their heads when thinking, how she’d thought it was so amusing that Odin was teaching Marie things Jake would have insisted on like they were as natural as reading and writing…  If she could think of a way to do it without raising suspicion and pointing a sign directly at them, she would ask about the family Treize had told her Jake lost the same day the two of them had been reunited. 

            But she’d never asked before.  Treize had told her the boy was fragile and she’d seen the way he soaked up Marie’s presence like a sponge, so she had never pried, only dropped her daughter in his lap and pretended she was busy while he pulled himself back from the brink of self-destruction because a different child needed him.  She had watched him slot the pieces of himself back together using her and Marie, Lucrezia and Treize and David as glue and never remarked on it, too worried she would disturb the process and cause something new to break. 

            Then, of course, her father had barged in and their delicate peace all came crashing down on their heads anyway.  Still, she wouldn’t trade those three precarious years – years of letters and pictures, secretive phone calls and movie nights watching ridiculous fluff with Lu while Jake rolled his eyes and played increasingly more complex games with Marie – for anything.  They had brought pieces of her love back with them, and Marie had blossomed.  Treize had healed from his mother’s passing, and they had stopped Jake from finding a cause worth dying for, as Treize had been so terrified he would.  Noin had been a breath of fresh air, the first genuine female friend she had had since learning she was pregnant; the only woman she had known at the time who didn’t _judge_ , but simply laughed and delivered another love letter while spoiling her little ginger with ridiculous adventure stories that she was mostly sure were adapted from anime. 

            _‘Love doesn’t have to be complicated,’_ Lu had told her once, taping a sheet of pink paper into a cone for a game of make believe.  _‘People always act like it comes that way, but it’s because they add all this drip and dross on top and try to say that was how they found it.  Love just **is** , and when people don’t know what to do with it, they get confused, and start making up rules to try and control something they don’t understand.’_  She had smiled gently then, picking up the wrapping ribbon and starting to cut lengths of pink and orange and gold.  _‘In some ways, I think the two of you actually have it right, even if the circumstances could be better.  Maybe you should have done things differently, but if you’re happy, then there shouldn’t be a problem.  That’s what it’s supposed to be about, isn’t it?’_   Grinning, she had started to lightly curl the ribbon.  _‘This is going to be an **awesome** princess hat.  Do you have any glitter?  If I’m going to do this, I should go all out.  I always wanted a little sister.’_  

            In the end, they’d weighed the thing down with so much nonsense, glitter and ribbons and sequins, that they couldn’t get it to stay on Marie’s head no matter how many hairpins they used.  Eventually Lu had gotten the clever idea to tape it to a headband, but even then the four-year-old had kept a hand on it for hand the afternoon to keep it from falling, and she hadn’t managed to get a single picture of her in it without it either in her eyes or her holding it up with a terribly concerned expression.  The two of them had laughed until they cried watching her try to manage it, then again when Jake returned with the pictures after they had been developed.  He’d looked at them like they had lost their minds… and maybe they had, a little, but that had just made it all the more hilarious. 

            She smiled at the memory, wiping at her eyes and looking up at the overcast sky, trying to recollect her thoughts.  Jake only meant well, but so long as Zechs was in a position of power and Odin could keep Marie hidden, it was safest to not do anything that might draw attention to them.  He had a less than stellar record for tracking Heero Yuy by his own account – though by Odin’s telling, he’d gotten far closer than he gave himself credit for – but there was no reason to give him the keys to unravel everything while the political situation was still so unstable.  She and Odin _had_ planned for this possibility; just not that she might find herself back in friendly territory and wanting to re-initiate contact. 

            In hindsight, she probably should have told them more about Jake, but she’d grown so used to his absence over the past decade that it had seemed… inconsequential.  She had forgotten how fiercely protective he could be… or at least, she hadn’t expected him to be so about _her_ , given the chance.  And Treize being alive changed everything, of course, spinning the young colonel into a little brother again instead of another reminder of what she had lost.  She could admit, now, that she had avoided him because seeing him without a new letter would have _hurt_ so deeply, but…  Well, now she felt rather silly. 

            _You can’t change the past._   She was here now, she was in contact with Treize again, however intermittently, and Odin would never let any harm come to Marie unless it tore a hole through him first.  Jacob had her back in a comfortingly real way she hadn’t even realized she missed even if he couldn’t help but keep her a prisoner, and he had said they knew Noin was alive, if nothing else.  She may have _wanted_ more, but all the same, this was better than she had dreamed possible six months ago. 

            It would be enough.  _For now._   The future was always negotiable. 

-

***

-

**November 1 st 198 – Friday – Prague, Czech Republic**

            “Well, it’s good to finally meet you in person,” Sally greeted warmly, shaking the kid’s hand.  She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to _do_ with him, since she could hardly send someone out alone who might get picked up by Child Protective Services and she didn’t have a partner ready for him yet, but Lucrezia had insisted he was getting stifled in Africa and needed to do something more directly productive.  It made sense – honestly, she’d been surprised they’d managed to keep him in one place for as long as they had given how he’d been on his own beforehand.  And if you didn’t want talent to burn out, you expanded the boundaries as soon as the student could grasp the edges of them. 

            But she also didn’t have any true sword specialists outside of Xu, and they’d partnered him with Hilde for a reason.  Abdul had said the boy was passing up their abilities to outclass the boy further south, though, so she had to work out _something_ before he either regressed or got cocky enough to get himself killed… 

            God, but she wished she had _real_ students instead of cadets.  Lucrezia just didn’t understand the difference between the worlds of academia and military training. 

            “You too, Dr. Po,” Yasa returned cheerfully, giving her hand a firm shake.  “But you’re out of ideas too, aren’t you?” 

            _Smart._   She’d been warned of that, but there wasn’t much to do when someone was so perceptive.  “For now,” she admitted.  “I’m working on it, though.”  _If Hilde can solidify her partnership with Adam a little more, then that will be that._   Chang and Schbeiker had done wonders for each other’s growth, after all, and they did make a good team, but maybe it was time to move things along.  Hilde was expanding more into networks and espionage while Xu remained more of a heavy hitter, and they’d both been leveling out.  Giving Xu an apprentice might be the next best step. 

            He nodded, clearly not bothered.  “I might be on to something?” he offered. 

            “Oh?”  That hadn’t occurred to her – though perhaps it should have.  Lu had warned her he wasn’t afraid to act independently.  _And then she shipped him off with **Heero**._  

            Considering the things she heard about ‘Audi’, she had an idea what he might be suggesting, but it didn’t seem prudent either.  The ex-pilot was deadly without doubt, but even if the man were willing to take a second apprentice, it would be a waste of the swordplay potential. 

            Though now that she had met the child herself, she planned to ask about the phone network.  Lucrezia had been appropriately impressed, and insisted that it was something they ask the _girl_ about, not Odin – though advised that it should be done while the man was in the same room.  Her general had informed her enough of what Heero was up to with this visit that she had been able to hand off a notebook for initial perusal before pulling Yasa aside for a private chat with the promise to be back in a few minutes to discuss details. 

            Almost as if he was reading her mind, the boy pulled out a phone identical to Lucrezia’s – a relatively popular new model, but she had no doubt it was one of the ones Audi had tinkered with.  “Do you have one of these yet?” 

            Sally smiled.  “That was on the agenda for our talk today.” 

            He nodded again.  “Makes sense.  She’s made about forty, so far, though they’re not all the same model.  I got walked through the basics on it last night, and it’s a lot tighter than what Koln said Stew put together for us.  The General’s been testing it, hasn’t she?” 

            _Forty?_   That was… either an oddly high number, or a very low one.  “She recommended we ask for a consult,” she agreed.  “They offered her one as a friend, and she’s been impressed.” 

            “I don’t get what the deal is, but I think she can do it to most of the common phones on the market,” Yasa informed her seriously.  “There’s definitely something about hardware involved, but mostly it’s programming.”  He shook his head.  “Almost makes me wish I’d done more than learn how to type in school, but listening to the two of them talk about it is like… Greek.  Maybe Stew could follow it, but…”  He shook his head again.  “Has the General said _why_ he hasn’t joined up?  I was _there_ when he flew Heavyarms, and she’s on the fast track to becoming a mini version of him only… taller.” 

            Sally didn’t bother to hide a smile at that.  Audi _was_ taller – though, with Odin still shy of 5’5 in boots, that wasn’t exactly surprising.  “They’ve been vague,” she admitted.  “And past experience has suggested it’s unwise to push.  He hasn’t shown any interest in leaving, and we weren’t ready to forward our agenda yet, so we’ve given him space.”  She paused for a moment before asking, “Why forty?” 

            He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.  “Yeah, that’s the thing; you guys seem to think he’s completely on his own out there.  She made a big network with a ton of phones for _all_ their friends plus spares the same time as she did the General’s.”  He tucked the phone back in his pocket.  “I met a couple of them last night.” 

            _…Okay, I wasn’t expecting that._   Odin had always presented himself as an individual.  “Oh?”  As far as she was aware, he’d never even _hinted_ at anyone other than the girl. 

            Yasa brought up his hands in a surrendering sort of gesture.  “The first two I saw, he might have only known in passing.  Audi said one of their names like a question then bounced when she got a nod from him, but the third slid in and out of his space like they’d been doing it for years, and Odin was more relaxed with him than even his sister.” 

            “She’s not really his sister,” she pointed out automatically, mind racing. 

            “No, she totally is,” Yasa argued.  “I just spent the past two days with them, I could feel how he was watching me, and that’s what’s going on.  It doesn’t have anything to do with who their parents were; that’s his little sister, and she treats this guy like her big brother’s best friend.  They _know_ him, and whoever else these phones were made for, I’ll bet they’re tight with the friend.  The other two, they…”  He shook out his hands in a frustrated way.  “I don’t know how to say this.” 

            She forced out a slow breath.  “Just… try, please.” 

            He looked up and to the side, lips pursed.  “At first, I thought the attitude was because I was pretty up front about where I was the last couple of years, and like I said, this is Odin’s best friend, right?  I could tell he knew before the two of them came inside; they were out walking and talking, catching up, for a long while.  I was getting ready for a cold shoulder, because Audi and Odin were laid back about it before we left Africa, but they’re _not_ normal.” 

            He paused again, thinking, and Sally’s eyes narrowed.  “At first?” 

            “Well, when he started talking to me, he was really just curious,” Yasa admitted.  “Which, okay, less common, but not new either; that’s how most of the Maguanacs were, and it’s kinda refreshing when it happens.  But then the other two perked up the _exact same way_.” 

            He was staring at her meaningfully, waiting for something.  “I don’t follow.” 

            He rolled his eyes.  “People don’t _do_ that, Doc.  Not all together like that without rehearsing, not unless they’re all on _exactly_ the same page, and nobody is about Cambyses.  They _wanted to know how I got out_ , in detail.  And the friend knew an _awful_ lot about finding water in the Sahara, though he blinked over some of the mountain stuff I mentioned.  He knew dunes, not rock, and he was too white to be local.” 

            Her lips went numb.  “You’re saying they were there.” 

            “Probably a lot further east, but yeah, I think so,” Yasa confirmed.  “They seem like pretty good guys, too – Audi got to bouncing with one of them like they were a couple of girls talking make-up, only instead it was knives, and Odin just rolled his eyes and started shuffling papers with Cat.  They were talking in Japanese until they realized I was trying to listen, then switched to… I think French?  After I’d talked to Cat a while, the other two warmed up completely, like we’d all been school friends or something, and I got pulled into watching this dumb pre-Fall sitcom Mark insisted was awesome before we fell asleep.” 

            “Cat?”   _No…_   Her cheeks were tingling now too. 

            He rolled his eyes.  “It’s a fake name, but yeah, they were calling the friend Cat.  You know, like _meow_?  Anyway, he was wearing a duster style coat to keep the short saber at the back of his waist from being too obvious, and he moves like a swordsman too.  I was going to ask if he’d spar, but he was already gone when I woke up this morning.” 

            _Quatre._   Heero had said Quatre disappeared suddenly when they were in Israel, and they knew, now, that Cambyses had definitely raided as far north as Jerusalem, though rarely.  If Lucrezia had the timeline right, that would have been while Heero was still too laid up to get by with anything less than crutches, not going outside at all; he might not have realized just how bad an idea it was to be alone outside at night.  _God, no one knew anything about Cambyses back then._   There had been rumors, but it was like listening to people talk about the coming zombie apocalypse – no one had taken it very seriously.  Xu had stumbled across them mostly by accident while trying to scout a safe route from Sudan, and it was only afterwards that anyone really believed the threat might be real. 

            The locals and newly transplanted Americans had been dead or enlisted by the tens of thousands by then, and it had only gotten worse. 

            “Doc?” 

            “I’m sorry,” she apologized, shaking herself and offering Yasa a wan smile.  “I just… wasn’t expecting that.”  Tiny, empathic Quatre had made it through the Cambyses meat grinder.  And she bet he’d managed just as much tactical genius in slipping away there as at _Libra_ or when he managed the Maguanacs, instead of Yasashiku’s ‘take my chance, run hard, and pray’ approach.  If he had people still following him after they were free – _Thirty, maybe, for forty phones plus spares?_ – it was because he had earned that loyalty. 

            Quatre, like Heero just _didn’t do_ things halfway. 

            “I’d like you to keep this to yourself, for now,” she decided. 

            “I don’t think you need to worry,” Yasa insisted.  “Odin’s weird, but his judgment’s pretty good, right?  And like I said, they seemed pretty okay.” 

            “I’m not worried,” she reassured him.  Maybe she should be, but if this was _Quatre_ then there was hardly any point, and with what Yasa had picked up, she couldn’t think of anyone _but_ Quatre that Odin might be so easy around.  Hilde had said things were a little stilted between him and Adam, but…  He’d spent over a year being _carried across Europe_ by Quatre, the two of them surviving by the skin of their teeth.  It made _sense_. 

            “You don’t have to lie to me,” the young American told her skeptically.  “I know I look like one, but I don’t get to be a kid anymore, and I’m not stupid.” 

            “I’m… really not worried,” she repeated, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of her.  _That’s three out of five, then._   “This is good.”  She focused on the boy again.  “What did you want to suggest?” 

            He eyed her suspiciously for another moment before relaxing.  “Let me see if I can keep talking to them, maybe running around, until you’ve got whatever idea pulled together.  Audi’s pretty cool and Odin doesn’t seem to mind me; I might just be able to tag along if you let me talk to them and make myself useful.  And I have Cat’s phone number too now – I can text him and see if he might show me a thing or two. 

            “One of the _first_ things Audi said to me was that they were our allies.”  He spread his hands to either side, palm up.  “Let’s make friends.”  Shrugging a little uncomfortably, he added, “And hey, if they were actually _sane_ inside that hellhole somehow, maybe I’ll meet somebody I can relate to instead of just get on with.  Could be worse, right?” 

            _When I realized Lucrezia approved of this boy,_ she mused, _I didn’t think it was because he was her same brand of casually brilliant._   The other woman had emphasized his mental stability and skills with a blade before all else, and said he was smart, but she’d never mentioned _this_. 

            “Absolutely.  Let’s see what we can do.” 

-

***

-

**November 2 nd 198 – Saturday – Zurich, Switzerland**

            “The Newberg proposal still needs work,” Relena muttered, frowning as she dug through her toiletry bag. 

            “I didn’t disagree,” Jake returned as he opened dresser drawers, making sure nothing had been missed.  “The relations between the Desautels and Zotovich just strike me as more pressing.  I know you don’t like opening a new can of worms before you finished sealing the last, and normally I’d agree, but there’s always an exception to the rule, and this is starting to look like one.”  He moved over to the bed and started tossing pillows onto the floor. 

            Vaughn watched curiously.  “Need any help, Boss?”  Sitting while the princess and the _billionaire_ went through their last minute routines was making him feel a little awkward, but at the same time, he’d already _done_ this search.  It looked more like a habit to calm his nerves than a belief that Vaughn was going to leave something behind, but it still stung a little. 

            “If you want,” Jake returned distractedly, stripping off the sheets.  “Or you can just go back to watching battle footage.” 

            Vaughn rolled his eyes and stood, setting the tablet down on top of his knapsack.  “You don’t have to be passive aggressive about it.” 

            “Mm?”  The blonde man paused, blinking over at him, then seemed to rewind the conversation.  “Oh, I was serious.”  He gestured at the mattress before reaching for a corner.  “Anything interesting?” 

            He was a little at a loss for why they were moving furniture in the hotel room they were about to leave, but whatever.  “The new suits the other guys have are freaking huge,” he said instead as he lifted his corner.  “They make our suits look like freaking _hobbits_ in comparison, and they’re armed for bear.  There’s not enough footage to really get an idea of overall formation, but their strategies are pretty damn effective.”  He looked down at the box springs, and the two bigass shotguns nestled there along with a handful of other nasty-looking tools.  “Seriously?” 

            Jake shrugged, holding up his end with one hand so he could reach down and sling the gun straps over his shoulder, then sweep the rest of his crap off onto the floor.  “Worst case scenario,” he offered by way of explanation. 

            “What is that even loaded with?”  He didn’t recognize the model of either – they looked custom, the bigger maybe even homemade. 

            “Nothing you ever want to see in action,” the other man deflected, dropping the mattress back down. 

            “Is that a fucking _rocket launcher_?” he hissed. 

            “I’d need rockets for that.”  He was smiling, his tone cheerfully glib as he moved over to one of the armchairs and started disassembling the artillery. 

            “Did you make those?”  He couldn’t decide if he was in awe or exasperated. 

            “For subtle, precision work,” Jake informed him, “I prefer to buy.  There are a lot of little details that I don’t have the practice to consistently manage myself, without even getting into how time-consuming it gets.  Most arms manufacturers will outperform anything I can machine by hand, and their explosives tend to be more stable than what I can put together – better shelf life, safer in touchy situations.” 

            “But?” 

            He shrugged, continuing to pull things apart.  “If you’re trying to knock a Leo out of commission, you don’t really care about subtle.  The advantage of facing an MS on foot is that they’re just about impossible to _miss_ , and their sensors are relatively obvious.  Knock those out, and it doesn’t matter if he has endless ammo: he can’t tell who he’s shooting, and friendly fire from an MS is too serious to risk, nine times out of ten.”  He shrugged.  “Or with a good eye and just the right shape to the charge, and you can force an internal collapse of the cockpit without popping the hatch.  Systems don’t even acknowledge the pilot death right away, since the seal is still patent – it just thinks it isn’t getting any new input.” 

            _Christ._   He’d honestly never really thought about trying to go up against a mobile suit while on foot – it was tantamount to suicide.  Or at least, he’d _thought_ it was. 

            “You can go after the engines too, they’re a bigger target, but there’s a higher chance of blowback and killing yourself while only disabling the suit,” Jake added, picking up a suitcase and starting to settle the pieces inside, handling the single shell he’d removed from the tube with deft care. 

            “You were sleeping on that?” Vaughn asked incredulously. 

            “The barrel is made out of neotitanium and the explosive head is C4; I have to activate three different triggers in succession to set it off, and I can’t pull the first unless I insert the key.”  He held up his wrist to emphasize the dark gunmetal bracelet he’d been wearing since they’d set up shop here Thursday morning.  “It’s safer than most handguns.” 

            “Vaughn?” Relena called from the bathroom.  “Based on the footage, where do you think public opinion is going to fall?  Do we look like we’re winning?” 

            “You’re fucking crazy,” Vaughn hissed at Jake – who just looked pleased as he started pulling apart the thing that looked more like a classic shotgun – before clearing his throat.  “It… could probably go either way?” He offered, moving towards the princess.  “They’re big and intimidating, but the only clips released show us overwhelming them.” 

            “So the press is favoring my brother,” she decided, turning the light off behind her as she stepped out and moving to drop her toiletries in the pile of suitcases by the door.  “According to reports, the colonials tore through at least two platoons like they were paper that same battle, and it was hardly subtle.” 

            “Not necessarily,” Jake murmured quietly, just loud enough for them to register.  “He won’t want much footage of him slaughtering young soldiers on the net down the line when he plays the hero.  Our suspiciously well-placed camera men and women with the news might just be covering their asses to avoid Regime retaliation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lending the opposition an ear too.” 

            That made sense enough, he supposed.  There were a lot of ways the currently available footage could be spun, on both sides.  _I guess they like keeping their options open._  

            “For our purposes, the press is currently favoring my brother,” Relena insisted, resting her hands on her hips as she looked around the room.  “Everyone else is gone?” 

            Vaughn nodded.  Mai was napping for evening shift with the night shift in the back of Mars’ van, Cassidy was taking a last minute run in the fitness center, and Lin had just gone to settle the bill downstairs.  “As soon as Lin’s back, I can go bring the car around.  Unless…?”  He shrugged, giving Jake a questioning look.  Obviously, Relena was safe with him, but they hadn’t worked out all the details of taking him out of rotation. 

            The colonel looked thoughtful, but as he opened his mouth Vaughn’s phone went off – the bouncy banjo ditty that made Marsden roll his eyes so hard that he’d _had_ to use it for the other guard.  Holding up one hand in a ‘wait’ gesture, he pulled it out and hit connect – Mars _shouldn’t_ be calling him right now, he was halfway to Bern.  “Recine speaking.” 

            _“Change of plans,”_ Mars drawled, voice tight.  _“My scouts are recalled, and one never showed up for muster this morning.  Everyone stay put until we’re back.  Report just got called three minutes ago.  Lin’s already on his way back up.”_  

            A stone settled in Vaughn’s gut.  “I hear you.  What’s your timeline?” 

            _“With this traffic?  An hour, perhaps more.  Coordinate with the ladies so Lincoln’s hands are less full?”_  

            “Can do.  Drive safe.”  He held up his hand in another stalling gesture as Relena started to ask something, and hit the speed dial for Daniella. 

            _“Hey, what’s up?”_  

            “You guys are still in your rooms?”  Dorothy and Olivia had stayed in the first hotel, not wanting to raise suspicion with the move. 

            She huffed out an amused breath.  _“It’s six-thirty in the morning, of **course** Dorothy’s still in bed.  Olivia’s drinking coffee with me, but we’re still in our pajamas.  What’s going on?”_  

            “Not sure yet, but maybe something big.  Wake her up and get packed, but don’t go anywhere.  I’ll be in touch once I know more.” 

            _“Oh…  Okay.”_   He could almost see her smile soften as she bit at her lip nervously.  _“Nothing dangerous, though, right?”_  

            “This would be a different kind of call if I thought so,” he agreed.  “But I’m not sure.  Act like it is until I say otherwise, please.” 

            _“Okay.  Just… let me know when you can.”_  

            “Absolutely.  Talk to you in a bit.”  Hitting end, he met eyes with the other two in the room.  “I have no idea, but it’s low key; Lin knows more.” 

            Relena’s lips tightened and she strode quickly to her bag, pulling out a tablet.  Jake, meanwhile, was casting a newly calculating look over the suite of rooms.  “What did de Leon say, exactly?” 

            “One of his day scouts vanished on him – he didn’t say which one.  Something about a report too, so it’s more than just that, but he wants to regroup.”  The colonel nodded, eyes shifting into the distance. 

            Someone knocked on the door. 

            A gun materialized in Jake’s hand while the bright haze of adrenaline settled over everything; Lin wouldn’t be knocking.  Feeling like he was moving in slow motion, heartbeat crawling, Vaughn pulled his sidearm from his hip and slid towards the entrance of the penthouse suite, past the couches and the dining room, ready to dart away.  The knocking started again, loud and insistent…  but he wasn’t inclined to use the peephole, because that was a great way to get a bullet to the brain. 

            At the same time, he wasn’t sure how far off Lin was, and if this was just housekeeping he was going to collapse out of sheer embarrassment while he waited for his senses to level back out.  “Who is it?” he called in a normal voice, a corner between him and the door. 

            “It’s Des,” the older man’s baritone called back immediately, voice irritated.  “Let me in already!” 

            _What?_   It sounded like the older man, but he should already be at the airport.  “How did you get up here?”  The executive elevator was the only _official_ way, and you needed a key card to make it work.  The emergency stairs were only accessible in the case of true emergencies, so if it really was Noin, then it didn’t make sense how he was _there_. 

            “Lincoln keyed me up before running to grab something out of the car,” Des called back.  “Are you seriously going to make me wait out here until he comes back?” 

            Vaughn scowled.  “I’m thinking about it, yeah!” 

            “ _Ass_!” 

            “You’re not earning any favors, you know!”  He rolled his eyes.  “What are you even doing here?” 

            “That’s what _I_ want to know!  Where the hell is Jake?” 

            “Texting you!” Jake called back from the bedroom.  “What do you say?” 

            There was a pause, some shuffling noises, then a snort.  “Zap!” 

            _What the fuck?_  

            Jake was rolling his eyes, gun away, as he came to the door.  “You’re alone out there?” 

            “Do I need to take pictures?” came the irritated reply. 

            The colonel pulled the door open, and sure enough, Desiderio Noin was standing there with his arms crossed, a suitcase at his feet.  “You _remember_ that Lena is a princess, don’t you?”  He picked up the bag.  “Come on.  I thought you said you weren’t going to swing by before your flight home.” 

            “Until I was in a cab and got a message saying my flight was _canceled_ , sure.  I had him turn this way instead, and caught Lin in the lobby.  What the hell is going on?”  He sent a tired smile at Relena when she came into the room, to which she just shook her head and came over to give him a hug like she had during their goodbyes yesterday. 

            “We were just trying to figure that out ourselves,” she explained.  “They didn’t say why?” 

            “I hadn’t gotten that far yet, we were right by the exit for the hotel when I read the text,” he grumbled.  “Cass isn’t going to be happy, though.  Lyle has an ear infection, she’s barely slept.” 

            “I’ll get you on the next available flight to Rome,” Jake assured him, messing with his phone.  “Vaughn, I’ve got things up here, I need you to go collect Cassidy.  He’s not answering, which probably means he’s washing up, but I want to be sure.” 

            He was going to start getting the jitters if he kept standing here anyway.  “Got it.”  Stepping out, he headed down the hall to call the elevator.  _Hopefully we’ll have answers by the time I get back._   He tapped his foot waiting for it to arrive. 

            _Or not._   Cassidy Foreman stood there frowning when the doors opened up, hair damp.  “What’s going on?” 

            Vaughn just rolled his eyes and turned to walk back up the hall.  _I’m done._   “Come on,” he called back over his shoulder.  He didn’t _know_ Foreman all that well yet, but he didn’t want to be rude either; he was just too keyed up to be decent company right now.  Spun tight, and nothing to let loose on. 

            It was a shitty way to start off the day.  None of this boded well. 

            “Sir?”  Cassidy called as they came back in, frowning at their guest.  “Noin?”  Focusing back on Jake he added, “I was just getting out of the shower; thought it would be faster to show up than answer.” 

            Jake nodded in agreement, playing with his phone.  “Have a seat, Captain, I’m still trying to get to the bottom of this.  De Leon initiated the round-up, so I’m behind the curve here.” 

            “Oh,” Relena murmured softly.  “ _Oh_ , no, of course…”  She looked up from her tablet, seated across the coffee table from the rest of them, eyes serious as she focused on Jake.  “We should have seen this coming, with the start of the engagements in space.  I don’t know why we didn’t.” 

            “Seen what?” Cassidy demanded tersely, moving towards her. 

            With a gentle grimace, she spun her tablet around to face the rest of them.  The screen showed a news headline… and the title made Vaughn’s stomach drop and his ears buzz. 

-

** Italy Secedes** **! **

-

 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *takes a bow* 
> 
> Thoughts, opinions? I feel like a whole lot and literally nothing happened here, but I’m not sure how much of that is because I had to avoid the 100 page chapter for sake of personal sanity. Who had RLTT right? I feel like Priya’s plotline, with the addition of Taylor, is now obvious if you hadn’t already put it together, but I’m the author, and it’s hard to tell sometimes. Reeeeaaaaaallllly looking forward to Quatre interacting with Sally’s people… it was getting kinda ridiculous. 
> 
> Sometimes simple solutions are the best – Occam’s Razor and all that, and Survival is periodically hilarious if you go reread some of Jake and Relena’s interactions and arguments /knowing/ that Jake is both a spy for Treize and the proprietor of RLTT. You might want to go look at Dorothy’s absurd theories in Ch. 19 about RLTT, or Jake calming Relena down when she’s freaking out in Ch. 20 and 22… Jake’s reaction to hearing Dorothy’s theory that Rhea Lowe wants to have Relena’s babies and they should name two of them Heero and Jake, in 22. Or how Relena was thinking about she was getting really fast responses from RLTT while Jake was away, taking Dorothy to the hospital after the club scare. Et cetera. Survival was written with the intention that it would be entertaining to reread if you knew the secrets, because the hints are tucked literally just about everywhere.
> 
> …Does this count as a cliffhanger?


	19. Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As everyone responds to the situation in Italy, it becomes clear that one's perspective is absolutely critical - right and wrong get uncomfortably grey, when you bring a microscope down on any particular action. Not to mention, it's important to draw bold lines between wants and needs, and learn to recognize them... and know when 'want' is the more important factor.
> 
> You can't escape the repercussions of your actions - be careful, or you might spend the rest of your life doling out compensation for what you've done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Edit:
> 
> Mostly grammar and typo fixes, but the wording was altered slightly to improve flow and add a few non-critical details to Lin's scene near the end.  
> \--
> 
>  
> 
> Here we are at the end of the edit, finally. Sorry this one took so long - despite being shorter than the previous two, it was rather dense, and my notes weren't up to par, which killed a lot of time to fix. There's a lot of information in this one as well as a roller coaster of emotion and some fantastic lines.
> 
> \--  
> Original note:
> 
> I found myself having to do a ton of research and background structural work before I could really move forward with this chapter. For example, I actually fully mapped out the Winner family, because I was honestly starting to get lost in that mess. I have to say that the NSA must hate writers, because we research some truly random and questionable shit. I’ve lost track of things I’ve had to stop myself from looking up on Google or Wikipedia while at work, but the list includes money laundering, Swiss bank security, shell corporations, cryptocurrency, police propaganda, false/black flag tactics… it goes on. I’ve been having these long, drawn out discussions about advertising and spinning it into politics, and how to run coups and still look good while doing it, and how governments are structured and run (with compare/contrast between countries), the anatomy and pros/cons/problems with conspiracies and cover-ups with my husband and a handful of good friends… you know who you are. These long, hours long discussions that go all over the place and just… 
> 
> Let’s just say I did a lot of research, by traditional means and not, and I’ve learned a lot that hopefully will make this story continue to expand well. Story research never really ends. 
> 
> Anyhow, sorry as usual for all my delays, and I hope you enjoy! This picks up probably literal minutes after Chapter 18 ends and only covers a span of four days, so I’d suggest brushing up on what was already posted.

_**-** _

**_Perspective _ **

_\--_

_ I am not a product of my circumstances.  I am a product of my decisions. _

_– Stephen Covey_

_\--_

_ Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality. _

_– Herman Kahn_

_\--_

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**November 2 nd 198 – Saturday – ** **Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base – Officer’s Quarters**

            Lucrezia fumbled blindly for the phone as it rang.  She kept a dim light on while she slept, but it was barely enough to keep her from stumbling over her boots on her way to the light switch – the dangers of a windowless room weren’t new to her, but she slept like shit if she could actually see.  “Hello?” she grumbled at it without opening her eyes… then groaned when it kept ringing and tapped the screen with her thumb harder.  “Hello?” 

            _“Well good morning, sleeping beauty,”_ Sally greeted, cheerful in the way only morning people could be. 

            “My alarms haven’t gone off yet,” Lucrezia defended, rolling back over and snuggling into her pillow.  She was comfortable… and her bed still had a distinctly _male_ musk to the sheets, even though Odin had only stayed one night.  It made something warm curl in her belly.  “What’s up, Lady?” 

            _“Well, I’ve got news, but it’s a little lukewarm, and questions too,”_ Sally admitted. 

            “Call back after I wake up, then,” Lu protested with a yawn, starting to fall back asleep. 

            _“I’m about to have my hands full up here, so no,”_ the other woman negated.  _“And besides, the questions are about Lover Boy.”_  

            Lucrezia grinned.  “Don’t call him that.” 

            _“Psh, I’ll call him what I want.  What do you know about his friends and allies?”_  

            “Mm…  I talked to one he trusts implicitly by text once, when we were in America,” she admitted.  “Overheard half a conversation here or there?”  She thought about it for a moment, grinning.  “He thinks Odin can’t navigate for shit; was kinda funny listening to them bicker about it.  Audi talks to at least two different boys close to her age… and there’s at least one other person he’s sent her to, before she started stalking him.  Why?” 

            _“You never mentioned any of this.”_   Her tone was reproachful. 

            Lu rolled her eyes.  “It’s been three years – I’d be a lot more worried if he _didn’t_ have any friends.”  _Damn it, now I’m actually awake._   Sprawling onto her back, she opened her eyes back up and stared at the ceiling.  “What’s the deal?” 

            Sally made an irritated noise.  _“Yasa says they’re a pretty big group.”_  

            “Good for him?”  She hadn’t expected Yasa to be an icebreaker, but she wasn’t going to complain if he’d managed to move things along.  “Maybe he’ll introduce us soon.”  She’d told Sally right from the start that they needed to let the gundam pilot set the pace on their relationship, and that hadn’t changed when she’d gotten involved with him.  If anything, that only made it more important – she didn’t want whatever was growing between them to get laced with politics.  She’d made that mistake with Zechs, and had no interest in repeating it.  “Why are you all wound up?” 

            Her commander sighed.  _“You know…  Nevermind, you’re right.  It just caught me off guard.  You still sitting down?”_  

            She narrowed her eyes.  “What kind of lukewarm news needs me sitting down?” she demanded. 

            _“The kind that isn’t that bad but hits close to home,”_ Sally dismissed.  _“Are you?”_  

            Lucrezia sat up.  “I’m still in bed,” she confirmed.  “What happened?” 

            _“Well…  Northern Italy tried to start a coup last night and announced they were seceding from the Regime.”_  

            She felt sick, tightening her grip on her phone.  “Northern?” 

            _“I’ve absolutely confirmed that it doesn’t spread as far south as Florence, maybe not any further than Bologna,”_ Sally reassured her quickly.  _“And from what the Regime’s been able to put together so far, the attempt in Genoa didn’t work – they’re the ones who raised the alarm, and the brigadier of that area’s just about foaming at the mouth.  The news is just saying **Italy** , though, so I wanted to talk to you before you tapped the usual channels.”_ 

            Tivoli was a fair bit further south than that, true, but- “Jesus, Sally, that doesn’t mean a damn _thing_ if they have suits!”  A handful of Aries could drastically change the size of a battlefield, let alone if someone brought Tauruses.  “Do they?” 

            _“No Tauruses,”_ Sally confirmed, voice tight.  _“Not for lack of trying, but they only took what were in the local hangars, and it looks like Zechs took most of them with him.  That and at least two depots that we know carried them got torched last night when these guys made their move.”_  

            _Fuck._   Throwing off her blankets, Lucrezia swung her legs out of bed.  “I’m up.  Make sure I’ve got everything relevant heading to my inbox; I need to check on the detail my ex keeps on my family before I can think straight.”  Hitting the light, she tugged open a drawer and started yanking out clothes. 

            Sally breathed out through her nose audibly.  _“ **Tell me** if you decide we’re breaking radio silence,”_ she demanded, intelligent enough to not remind her general why they’d agreed they _shouldn’t_. 

            “Tch.  Go mind your business, Lady, I’ll keep you posted,” Lucrezia agreed before hanging up and pulling her sleep shirt over her head. 

            _Zechs, if you’ve ever been good for a single damn thing, you’d better be keeping them safe._   It had infuriated her when she first realized just how many layers of security her old lover had layered over her hometown, particularly over the neighborhood where she grew up.  She’d been stupid enough to try going home that first July after she’d finally put herself back together. 

            It had only been dumb luck that she’d recognized Cassie’s tail for what it was before walking up to her in the grocery. 

            Back then, the wig and sunglasses she’d picked up had mostly been a joke so she could sneak up on and surprise her old friend, but she’d been obscenely grateful for them once she caught on to the situation.  That had been before they’d recognized the back door into the Regime’s database for what it was – before she’d done more than accept Sally’s hospitality in the Underground as a saving grace.  She’d wanted to talk to her dad before she decided what to do next – get an outside opinion that she trusted, just… to be sure she hadn’t missed something.  Or really, to see if he could explain to her _why_ she’d been so stupid, how she’d fallen so far…  She’d hoped that maybe he could convince her that the Fall wasn’t as much her fault as Zechs’.  She’d known it was stupid to think it was, but that hadn’t made the worry not _real_ … 

            She’d felt like such a little _girl_ after everything at _Libra_.  Some part of her had believed that maybe her father could make it better the same way he’d been able to before her mother died.  She’d known it wasn’t so simple as that, but in her head maybe it _could_ be, and that was the first step before trying to tackle reality, right? 

            But…  Zechs was having Cassie and her dad followed every time they left the house.  Back then, at least, there had still been government issue vans circling her neighborhood like sharks, new neighbors all around the block in an area where sales were rare…  The mail carrier was on payroll.  It hadn’t taken long to spot the cameras.  If she’d gone right for the front door instead of trying to sneak up on Cassie, Zechs would have had her inside the hour. 

            It had made her _skin crawl_.  If she hadn’t been sure about hating Zechs before, that would have sealed it.  She hadn’t started to breathe easy until they found Jake’s inlet to the Regime – it _had_ to be Jake’s, counter style be damned – and she could confirm that there were no cameras _inside_ the villa.  No one got into her house uninvited, that was the rule, and she had been afraid that that sanctity had been broken… but either the bastard still had some shred of decency left, or he had been rebuffed. 

            She’d gone back to Sally the night after her aborted visit and agreed to lead her resistance.  She’d taken Hilde under wing seriously instead of the casual interest of before, and started transforming her into the Regime’s worst nightmare; started raiding bases and stealing everything she could with no thought to the casualties when she destroyed bases, entire barracks…  No dorms, no _children_ who hadn’t committed yet, but… 

            She had changed, and sometimes she wasn’t sure it had been for the better, but she couldn’t regret it.  The last time she had held back, had insisted on being _fair_ and _principled_ , Milliardo fucking Peacecraft had almost succeeded at genocide; and his lack of success wasn’t because of a single thing _she_ had done.  _I will **never** be so useless again,_ she’d decided, and she had spent the next two years proving it.  Stealing his equipment, his influence from him piece by piece, destabilizing his authority as quickly as they could without risking another power coming into play. 

            She’d been able to find her way without her father’s support, without Jake or Treize or anyone but Sally and what she’d built with her own two hands, but that didn’t mean she was happy about it.  The security on the house disgusted her enough that she didn’t look into it anymore beyond confirming that it was still happening, but while she could probably find a way around it now…  They were _so close_ , and the fact that Zechs didn’t know she led his opposition was a hell of a boon. 

            Her dad and Cassie had eventually responded to her absence with absurd degrees of over sharing on social media, and that helped.  They posted pictures of Lyle _daily_ , kept a running blog, and she could cry because she knew how much her dad loved his privacy, that he had to be doing it for her sake… because he _understood_. 

            But if it looked like their safety was in jeopardy, she’d deal with the tactical consequences of flashing her face all over the neighborhood to get them out.  Hell, she could get _Heero Yuy_ for backup if it came to that, on top of gathering her best.  As a general, she knew it wouldn’t be worth it to have them close again, but her family was _not_ going to be the latest casualty of this madness. 

            Resting her palms on the dresser she leaned forward and forced herself to take a deep breath.  _He cares.  He wants them safe._   She might hate Milliardo in a way that made self-revulsion rise up the back of her throat, but however awful he was, _all_ of her boys had turned to her father as some sort of surrogate dad during their Academy days.  They had all needed him in different ways and she’d gone out of her way to reinforce those ties, planning for a future that hadn’t come to pass; and maybe Zechs had taken to him the least, but the bond was still there.  She didn’t think the protection detail over the remaining Noins was purely a plan to find her – he would have dropped it by now, otherwise. 

            Zechs might be a worthless excuse for a human being, but she was mostly sure she could trust him to have standing orders to evacuate them to safety at the first sign of invasion.  That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be ready to do it herself, but- 

            _Calm down…  Cool it…  It’s going to be fine._   It was going to be fine because she was going to _make_ it be fine if it wasn’t, and it didn’t have to be any more complicated than that.  _You’re not any good to anyone if you can’t keep a lid on this, so calm… and get it done._   This was all just contingency planning anyway; Zechs loved her father enough to resort to _institutionalized stalking_. 

            She just couldn’t trust the man to do anything right.  Not ever again. 

            _Fuck it._   Grabbing her boots, she strode back over to her bed and sat before picking up her phone and opening a text to Odin; she had no idea what time zone he was in at the moment, and it was disgustingly early in her own anyway.  _‘Call me when you get a chance?’_   Even over the phone, there was something soothing about the man, whether it was his no nonsense attitude or the fact that she knew he would back anything he said to the hilt.  She’d only been awake for a handful of minutes and her nerves were already fried – she could use some reassurance that everything would be fine, logical or not.  _And it doesn’t hurt that by the time he gets back to me, I’ll know if I need help staging a kidnapping._   It wasn’t exactly how she wanted to see them again for the first time in three years, but she could think of worse ways. 

            Smiling grimly to herself, she started lacing up her boots.  _Time to get to work._  

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Dorothy’s Townhouse**

            “So?” 

            BJ sighed as he moved back into the dining room and dropped into a chair.  “Both Marcella and Chelsea have limited intel,” he admitted.  “But Marcella is positive that no one she knows has a finger in this, and Chels agrees that Romefeller’s the most likely catalyst.” 

            “Surprise, surprise,” Tristan muttered dryly, tapping a pencil restlessly on his notebook.  “Guess whose mules weren’t affected by the border dispute last night?” 

            “Ooh, ooh, did they know exactly where to go?” Alexis asked with false cheer.  “Exactly at the right time, which wasn’t their usual schedule?” 

            “As much as drug runners have a schedule,” Tristan agreed, staring into the distance unseeingly. 

            “Well, thank God for the Romefeller need to turn a profit,” Lindsay offered sarcastically, stretching his arms overhead. 

            “It makes them easy to track, at any rate,” Tristan agreed. 

            “Easy to trap too,” Lindsay agreed. 

            “It might have their fingerprints all over it,” BJ interrupted pointedly.  “But I don’t buy it.” 

            “Only because it’s destined to fail?” Alexis asked brightly.  “Nice big flash in the pan before the fire’s stoked and all the flaming bits fly everywhere?” 

            BJ rolled his eyes.  “Minus the imagery, but yes.  Nan’s trying to follow the money now, but if this is them, it’s just a way to stir the pot.” 

            “Well, yeah.  Have to test the waters before you launch an invasion, and the best way to do that is fire up some easy mark and convince him you’ve got his back before you step back and watch _how_ he burns.”  Lindsay shrugged. 

            “You’re a menace,” Alexis decided with a sigh, sitting back. 

            Lindsay’s smile was sharp as a knife.  “How sweet of you.  Politics is just a high stakes grift, kid, and war is the next level of politics.” 

            “Gentlemen, we have maybe another hour before we can expect our hostess to storm back in, and a to do list the length of my arm,” BJ reminded them.  “Let’s stay on topic.” 

            Alexis made a face.  “How much say is Relena actually going to have in what happens?” 

            “She’s…  Minister of Foreign Affairs,” Tristan pointed out like his friend was simple-minded.  “So a lot.” 

            “No, I mean realistically,” Alexis argued, leaning forward on his elbows and tossing his head to shake his bangs out of his eyes.  “Other than that one time in Sudan, she and the military operate entirely independently of each other, and she got a lot of pushback from that.  It only worked because she shocked them into obedience, and there’s no way Marquise _didn’t_ know this was coming, in some form or other.  He’s not a moron; he’ll have a plan in place.” 

            “Right.”  The Regime’s first actions had been entirely designed to isolate the more powerful factions of Romefeller in the east, giving large chunks of Africa to China in exchange for an agreement to hold the borders against what was left of the Alliance.  It had effectively penned the bastards in for the last three years, as they had little to gain by breaking the stranglehold and relatively few liberties taken… 

            Christ, but he didn’t doubt the rumors leaking out from there about the return to a more feudal society.  A few of Natalia’s girls had managed to get in and out of Turkmenistan a few times last year, and the old aristocracy was making a terrifyingly efficient turnaround on changing social norms with a mix of propaganda and KGB tactics.  Considering what they’d managed in just three years, he wasn’t sure if he could stomach what it would be like in ten, when what human memory remained of pre-Fall conditions began fading entirely.  By removing the middle generations – either inviting them into new luxury or selling them into remote work mines and farms – they’d effectively set the stage to mould the future youth into anything they wanted. 

            It made BJ wonder if leaving the Alliance Resistance Movement when things started to get too extreme had really been for the best.  Maybe, if they hadn’t all argued and split, going in different directions, this wouldn’t have been possible.  There _were_ some really _fucked up_ families in the aristocracy that needed to be put down like mad dogs… but at the same time, there were lines you couldn’t cross and come back from.  Some atrocities…  Jesus, he still needed to be able to _live_ with himself, after it was all said and done. 

            The ends didn’t always justify the means, and unlike a lot of people who _said_ that, he’d put his money where his mouth was and left.  Spread the word, burned as many of the bastards as he could – which was a _lot_ , given how high a position he’d held in both Alliance Intelligence and ARM – and dropped off the map.  Laid low for a year or so, spent some time in Sanc watching the psychosis fly by…  Had been thinking about how to start up a more normal life under a new name once the dust settled; try to meet someone, maybe. 

            And then Milliardo fucking Peacecraft had dropped a goddamn battleship on the planet, and he’d learned that there were worse things than mass assassinations of innocents born to the wrong last name. 

            After that?  He couldn’t just do _nothing_. 

            “Whether or not the princess can actually affect the playing field doesn’t matter at the moment,” he decided.  “So long as she _thinks_ she can the information will be useful to her, and she’s been known to surprise people.” 

            “Except her brother,” Alexis argued. 

            “Don’t give him too much credit,” BJ dismissed, rolling his eyes.  “We all know a lot more is happening in Sarracenia than we have any hope of picking up, and I’m positive that Miller, at least, knows _exactly_ what we are.”  He’d been skeptical as hell of Mitchell’s deal at first, but the chance to get in on Darlian’s ground floor had been worth the risk – especially when he’d known ways they could have all cut and run if it went sour.  He hadn’t really _wanted_ to run in any case – he’d made good progress on cutting back the forced labor and human trafficking in Central Europe, on top of building a codependent network with old friends who had left the field and come back for the same reasons as him – but he’d been ready to do it. 

            Thankfully, it hadn’t proved necessary.  Outside of a few hiccups, everything had been running smooth, and now he had the beginnings of an organization that might both be permanent _and_ have a sense of morality attached when all was said and done. 

            “It’s only a matter of time before we’re approached again,” he continued.  “And I want to be as solid as possible before we _actually_ have Princess Relena’s attention on us.” 

            “I can’t be the only one who thinks Catalonia’s already onto us,” Alexis groused.  “She’s coy – and I know that’s just part of her charm, don’t get me wrong – but I’m almost positive she sniffed us out weeks ago.” 

            _Try **months** , kid._  Fortunately, she was just enough like her father for that to have worked out to their benefit.  Treize got away with half the shit he did before his uncle’s demise not because he’d successfully hidden it all, but because Catalonia minds worked along the same lines as idle cats – so long as it wasn’t a personal threat, the actions of others served as easy entertainment. 

            “As long as she’s willing to play along, we don’t have to deal with her directly,” BJ informed him bluntly.  “Enjoy it while it lasts.”  He was pretty sure at this point that they were stuck with the noblewoman for life. 

            It could be worse.  She was insanely intelligent as well as capricious, and it wasn’t that hard to smooth her feathers when she got ruffled.  She understood the concept of a symbiotic relationship better than any of the old Romefeller court he had worked with before the start of Operation Meteor; OZ had been better about that, but it was also the least of his problems, so he’d kept his distance.  _And she’s still young._   In all likelihood, the heiress would only continue to mature into a capable partner – and it was clear at this point that Catalonia and the princess were a package deal.  If a situation started to morph out of shape down the line, he was reasonably sure he could appeal to their humanitarian queen to get things sorted again. 

            He just had to be sure they actually _got_ the philanthropist on the throne, first. 

            “It’s a moot point if Dorothy’s already reached the same conclusion, which I suspect she has,” he continued, redirecting the topic again.  “We have more evidence to add to the pile, but she has a finger to Romefeller’s pulse that likely means it’s obvious to her.  What _I’m_ more worried about is the public’s response, and how we spin this in Relena’s favor, especially with this latest tour canceled.”  He crossed his arms.  “I have a few ideas, but I want to hear what you all think first.” 

-

***

-

**Space – Near L4**

            Vitorie Winner sighed, shoving away from her screens and rubbing her hands over her face.  “No, that’s not going to work either,” she muttered under her breath.  _Well, maybe the last few clicks?_   The middle was probably where she’d lost track of the numbers, but what that _meant_ was that she needed to start over on all her math, because as it was, this route was going to leave someone dead in the water. 

            _And to think I was almost excited for the challenge._   She rolled her eyes.  _Shows me.  Be careful what you wish for._   Atia had always been fond of the phrase for a reason, after all.  Plans rarely survived the battlefield and all that… 

            That didn’t make this _not_ annoying as fuck, though. 

            _“Torie?”_  

            She blinked, realizing her com light was on.  _Damn it._   “Sorry, I must have had the ringer off.”  _And bumped the com button with my elbow when I pushed away form the console… again._   She could see the caller ID, though.  “What’s up, Todd?” 

            _“Uh…  You called me?”_ the Sweeper on the other end of the line returned worriedly. 

            _Wow._   Well, Todd _was_ on her speed dial… and there was a downside to having a wrap-around console made entirely of touch screens.  There was a reason they’d never been put in mobile suits – too prone to accidents.  She sighed.  “Sorry.”  She really needed to write program parameters into this thing; it wasn’t the first time she’d called someone on accident.  Usually it didn’t matter because she’d just hit the lights or open her favorite web pages, but she’d never bothered playing with the call permissions because she usually kept in deep enough space that the signal wasn’t good enough to manage more than text anyway.  “Elbow wanted to see you, I guess,” she joked. 

            He snorted.  _“That excuse is only going to work so many times before I decide you just want to hear my voice,”_ Todd decided playfully. 

            She grinned, relaxing back into her chair a bit more.  “You’re on to me,” she admitted in a dramatic tone.  “I’m desperate for your company.  Leave the Sweepers and come work for me?”  Honestly, she was only half kidding; Todd was a damn good navigator, and had an eye for profit.  He’d be a good boon for the company if she could recruit him… and he was a good friend, too.  She wasn’t entirely sure if she’d be able to tolerate him in _person_ , but she liked talking to him… and she’d never been very good at figuring out how someone would affect her until they were right in front of her.  She was a recluse doing deep space navigation for a reason. 

            That didn’t mean she didn’t wish she _wasn’t_ now and again, though.  It got lonely sometimes. 

            He made a noncommittal noise.  _“The nice thing about the Sweepers is I can navigate **or** salvage, render, or build.  I have options.”_  

            “And with all those _options_ , all you do is navigate,” she pointed out.  It was an old argument.  “With Bishop Enterprises, you could expand your systems knowledge and keep moving up.”  The Sweeper navigators made good money, but there was no upward mobility there – and they were hardly on the bleeding edge of technology. 

            _“Yeah, but I want to give it another couple years to be sure I won’t change my mind,”_ he argued.  _“I’m young, I’ve got time.  And I don’t want to jump ship right after I finished my training contract; I owe them more than that.  Don’t want to look like a job hopper either, even if I can wave it off by being friends with **the** Victoria Bishop.”_  

            “You say it like it’s _my_ company,” she complained, bringing one bare foot up against the edge of her console and considering the chipped paint on her toes.  _Time to redo that…_   If she ever got through the rest of her workload, at least, which was looking like _never_. 

            _“Yeah, but you’re the heiress, right?  You said your sisters weren’t interested, and anyone can tell your mom’s been grooming you for it.  And Laura Bishop might decide to drop it on you so she can go start something else too – she **does** that.”_  

            Torie scrunched her nose.  Laina was her mom in just about every way but technicality, and _had_ point blank said she was getting bored so she wanted Vitorie to buck up and take the reigns sometime soon, but she hadn’t realized it had already made it into the rumor mill. 

            _Lame._   There was no way she hadn’t done it on purpose, either; this was her big sister’s favorite way up putting pressure on. 

            It wasn’t like she wasn’t _interested_.  She just… wanted a little more time to herself before she had to be that responsible.  Unlike Laina, she didn’t like building companies up from the ground, and she wouldn’t want to sell or hand off Bishop Enterprises after a decade at the helm.  She _liked_ the work and was only interested in the CEO end because she didn’t want to risk getting screwed over by whoever came after Laina – or even worse, some socially awkward spot where the new CEO knew he couldn’t piss her off because she technically owned everything and walked around her on eggshells.  She’d have to _deal_ with that every time she saw the guy, and she couldn’t do _everything_ through the phone.  She could do a _lot_ , but… 

            _I need to get a better handle on this._   Running away from major populations for the rest of her life had seemed like a great idea when she was fifteen, but seven years later, she was willing to acknowledge that isolation sucked and she was turning into a friendless hermit.  One that might even start glowing in the dark soon, if she didn’t get her freaking sun lamps repaired.  _I guess it was too much to hope that jumping on the rebellion train would get her to give me more time._  

            _“Torie?  You still there?”_  

            She groaned.  “Yeah… just bemoaning my very first world problems.  You know how it goes.  Woe is me, why did I have to be born into a family of entrepreneurs, why can’t my mom just leave me alone, whine, whine, whine…” 

            Todd snickered.  _“I wasn’t going to say it.  And besides, all that expectation?  It almost makes me glad I’m a war orphan, you know?  I mean, I made it, so…  No fuss, no muss, right?”_  

            “There are _so_ many things wrong with that whole statement,” Torie argued tiredly.  “And the worst thing is, I know you’re totally serious.” 

            She could practically hear him shrug.  _“Hard to miss what you never had.  I’ve seen people a lot worse off, and I’ve seen people with more family get way more upset about it – doesn’t seem to help anything to get all up in arms about it.  Kinda funny, really.”_  

            God, she really _did_ need to meet Todd in person.  If he was half as chill as he talked, she might be willing to _marry_ him.  “I love you,” she half whined, eyes shut again. 

            He snorted again.  _“Uh huh.  When was the last time you slept, anyway?  I know we’re all on overtime with all the mess of the fighting, but you sound exhausted.”_  

            That was probably a valid question.  “I don’t know, I’d have to check the logs.”  No one else on her team had said anything in a while, though, and this latest plan she was fighting with was… 

            She narrowed her eyes as she leaned forward and really _looked_ at her work history.  She was pretty sure the last time she’d heard from Arthur had been when she was on the third L3-Luna commerce route, and she knew she’d lost track of time, but had she really plotted out _twelve_ highways since?  Four of them had already run through analytics and been accepted, another two were being dismissed based on Sweeper updates on the priors… 

            …And she had her ringer off.  Her clock was set to standard, but Todd was supposed to be on the L4 cycle, she was pretty sure.  “What time is it, local?” 

            _“Almost three in the afternoon.  Why?”_  

            “Because it looks like I’m falling back into a thirty-six hour day cycle,” she admitted, checking her messages.  A few confirmations on the routes in there, some thanks…  understanding that they’d catch her tomorrow since she’d decided to focus inward today…  “And breaking it,” she added.  Even by the thirty-six schedule, she should’ve gone to bed two hours ago, and she hadn’t actually been planning it.  _No wonder my math went hinky._  

            Todd groaned.  _“I don’t know how you do that.  Go to **bed** , woman, you’re making us all look bad.  What are you even made of?”_ 

            “Quality genes and high end supplements,” she snarked back.  “Maintained through the most slovenly living habits I can invent.”  _I need to do laundry._   She _needed_ to top off her water tanks first, though…  Buy groceries…  Get her lamps fixed…  Whine at Laina for her machinations to make sure she _actually_ gave her the three years she promised before dropping the business in her lap…  She started closing windows, signing out of her programs.  “Which hub are you guys planning to dock at next?” 

            _“What, are you actually going to be social?”_  

            “Maybe,” she hedged.  “Depends on how close you are and how I feel when I wake up.”  She _was_ ahead of quota, had been before last talking to Art, let alone now…  And she was pretty sure she was out of ramen.  Grimacing down at the sweatshirt falling off one shoulder, she realized she wasn’t wearing a bra because she had run out of clean ones.  _It might be worth going to a laundromat instead of running however many loads I’ve built up._   She’d been in enough debris fields lately too that she ought to have all her systems checked instead of just replacing what she’d noticed already… 

            _“Now I **know** you’re tired,”_ Todd laughed.  _“You don’t even like to vid chat.”_  

            “Yeah, but I need to start working on that,” she groused.  “Just…  Can you text me your docking schedule?  I’ll see if I can match it once I’m back up.”  If she had to go in anyway, she might as well, right?  Three years wasn’t _actually_ all that long of a time… 

            _“Alright, sure.  And don’t worry, I won’t get my hopes up; I know you.”_  

            “You’re a man among men, Todd,” she told him seriously, standing to start flicking switches to put her ship into true standby.  She wasn’t sure how many times she’d offered to meet him then ended up having to blow him off, but it had definitely been more than twice.  “I’ll talk to you later.” 

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “So when do the negotiations start?”  Des didn’t look up. 

            Jake sighed, shutting the door behind him and moved to sit in the desk chair across from the bed.  “We have a press conference in a little over an hour.  Statement of intent, airing the issues…  It’s a process.  How’s Cassie?” 

            “She invited over her friends and put the house on lockdown as soon as she heard.”  He smiled a little tightly, still staring at the wall.  “No one goes in or out until they have word.  They should be fine for maybe two weeks before groceries start to become an issue.” 

            “It shouldn’t come to that.” 

            “I fucking hope not,” the older man returned, tone dark.  “My house is secure against _people_ , not suits.  Any sign of the conflict moving south-” 

            “They’ll be evacuated,” Jake assured him, resisting the urge to swallow.  “I checked in with your…” 

            “Guards?”  Des finally looked up, and raised a brow at Jake, for all that he was scowling.  “What?  It’s what they are.  Decently subtle, but I’m not blind.  I haven’t seen Lucrezia in three years, and I know full well it’s because of the company I keep these days.”  He shook his head.  “I decided a while ago to take it as a good sign that she wouldn’t back down; girl’s sticking to her guns, and whatever they are, I’m pretty sure they’re pointed at the old boyfriend.”  He sighed and collapsed a little on himself, looking at the floor.  “I raised a woman of principles; I’d be disappointed if she went this far only to back down now.” 

            Jake did swallow at that.  “You know you sorta raised me, too.” 

            “Only because you wouldn’t let Jack try.” 

            Fuck, but the old man really wasn’t pulling his punches today.  “Doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.  I didn’t have anything to do with the surveillance, but if Zechs hadn’t done it, I’m not sure I could’ve left well enough alone, either.” 

            Noin sighed.  “Kid,” he began, voice testy.  “You’re basically _my kid_ , so quit before you get started.  It wouldn’t have been the same.” 

            “Yeah, well, I kinda took it as an excuse to avoid you anyway,” he admitted bitterly. 

            “Avoided me so hard you noticed my better investments fall through in the economic collapse and intervened before I had to go out like a normal person and get a _job_.” 

            “You’ve been out of the field for long enough that that wouldn’t have worked and you know it,” Jake argued immediately.  “Maybe now, but not then.” 

            “Which you know because you checked the markets, the listings,” Des continued in a bone dry tone.  “I tried to get a hold of you after you set me back up, you little shit.  You’ve got enough schemes running at once that I figured I could at least make myself useful.  Once I realized I was under guard, I knew Lu wasn’t coming home, so we could’ve left Italy; Cass always wanted to see more of the world anyway.” 

            Jake clenched his jaw.  “I… thought you were mad.”  He wasn’t going to deny making himself untraceable until Des had given up on that line of thought. 

            “I _was_.”  He looked up again, glowering over at him.  “I needed to _talk_ to you, and you ran like a fucking ninny!”  Sighing, he waved a dismissive hand.  “I’m not _now_ , but damn it all, kid, you have this absurd tendency to rabbit the moment you realize someone might give a damn.” 

            He closed his eyes, really not interested in crying right now.  “Sorry.” 

            Des sighed again.  “Shit, don’t do that, that’s not what I meant.  The last thing I want is to undo the last three years – we’ve come too far for that.  I wouldn’t have Lyle if you’d manned up before now, and you might not have Relena, or any of all this…  No.  You’ve done good, for you and everyone else.  I’m just allowed to be annoyed too.” 

            Jake took a deep breath, running that through his mind as Des reached out and pulled one of his hands towards him – focusing on the warmth of the touch and trying to just… be.  “I’m all over the place, aren’t I?” he found himself whispering. 

            “Mm-hmm.”  He had both hands wrapped around Jake’s one now, motions soothing.  “I wouldn’t say that it isn’t warranted, though.  Have you even come down off your high enough to realize what all this business with Junior might mean, yet?” 

            His stomach churned.  “Can’t I just be happy he’s _alive_?” 

            “Of course you can.  But you know it’s not that simple, either.”  Thumbs started to dig gently into his palm in a massaging motion.  “For better or worse, I’ve gone and raised both you and Lu to strong principles, and I know you too well to imagine you might try to skirt responsibility for the boy.  You just gave him a fortune capable of ruining nations – what if you don’t like how he uses it?” 

            “I didn’t _give_ him anything,” Jake bit out, trying to keep his muscles relaxed.  “It was _his_ all along, not mine.” 

            “That doesn’t change the question,” Des countered calmly, reaching for the other hand and repeating his motions.  “If nothing else, I’m stunned you’re not jumping at the chance to see him again.” 

            “And what did that get me last time?” Jake demanded, pulling away and standing to pace back towards the door.  “He’s alive, which means he’s _that_ good at disappearing, Des.  If I startle him he’ll just be _gone_ and we’ll never hear from him again.” 

            “So you’re going to willingly never talk to him again instead?”  The man’s tone was more idly curious than anything. 

            Jake snorted.  “Now who’s being dramatic?  Never is a long time, Des.  He doesn’t know me, but he’ll have a file from HTD, and he has clues riddled through his accounts.  If he doesn’t get curious enough to seek me out in a year, I’ll try to put out a few feelers – hopefully he’ll be settled enough that it won’t intimidate him, by then.” 

            “You’re assuming he’s rather skittish.” 

            “Better to assume than find out the hard way.  If I’m wrong and he shows up at Sarracenia’s gates tomorrow asking to see me, it’s not like I’ll have lost anything.”  _God, but wouldn’t that be something?_   It was possibly the _least_ likely scenario he could think of, but… wouldn’t it be nice? 

            _He doesn’t know who I am.  If anything, I’m going to register as a **threat** …_  And _fuck_ , that hurt, but it didn’t make it not true. 

            The same way it was true in reverse. 

            “You’d let him in here?” Des asked skeptically. 

            _No._   Because he wasn’t an idiot, and Des wasn’t _wrong_.  “I’d go out.”  The older man slumped in relief, and Jake rolled his eyes.  “Seriously?  Give me a little credit.”  He might love his brother, but he knew full well that he loved the child, loved the _idea_ of him being alive, not the man he’d just learned existed. 

            “You have a way of forgetting,” Des began quietly.  “Just how _deadly_ your uncle raised the two of you to be.” 

            “Hardly.”  It just didn’t tend to come up in casual conversation. 

            Des sighed and sat up straight, staring at the wall again.  “Am I the _only_ one who remembers he almost killed Lucrezia, the day Odin died?” 

            His stomach sank.  “Des…” 

            “Oh, I know, it was a fucking war zone, you were all soldiers and we live in a crapsack world where sending my daughter to an elite military school was actually a _good idea_ , but can we acknowledge for a minute here that the only reason a _nine year old in loafers_ didn’t kill the girl three years his senior in a _mobile suit_ was because her commander thought with his heart more than his head?” 

            He grit his teeth.  “Lucrezia doesn’t-” 

            “Lucrezia isn’t a _parent_!” Des snarled.  “Lucrezia’s completely desensitized to people trying to shoot her dead, and if I hadn’t known she would leave for the regular corps a few years later when I didn’t have a say any more, I never would have let her apply to OZ!” 

            “Well, she’s alive, so it’s a good thing you did!” 

            “Why do you think I _did_ it?  Fuck!”  He covered his face with both hands.  “None of you have ever _understood_ how horrifying that was.”  He shook his head.  “She was wrapped in the best armor on the market… and he almost ended her with a single shot.  From the ground.  And the whole lot of you just shrugged it off like it was to be expected, even with Treize hospitalized, and then _you disappeared_ , and I couldn’t…”  Dropping his hands back in his lap, he licked his lips and focused on the wall again.  “God help you when you’re a father, Jacob.” 

            He felt like his ribcage was about to collapse.  “Des…” 

            Looking put upon, the older man half stood and reached out to grab him by the wrist and push him back into the desk chair across from him.  “Breathe.” 

            He hadn’t stopped, actually.  “Des, you can’t…”  He swallowed.  “I’ve _done that_.  I’ve done _worse_.”  **_Repeatedly_** _._   _I taught Lucrezia to do the same, **walked her through it on the field** more than once._   “We… we all…” 

            _…I’ll do it again, if needs be, and I won’t hesitate._  

            Des sighed.  “Do you have any idea,” he admitted quietly, “how grateful I am, that you took to Lucrezia?”  He met his eyes solidly.  “How glad I am that _you_ are never someone I have to worry about coming after me and mine?  That you _are_ one of mine?”  He took his hands in his again and bowed his head over them.  “I just worry that…  Jake, you came by your morals by the skin of your teeth, and you grew to be one hell of a man. 

            “What if he’s you, only _without_ them?” 

            Jake squeezed his eyes shut.  “I can’t think like that.”  It wasn’t a new idea, he’d thought of it almost as soon as the news had sunk in, but he _couldn’t_ think like that.  If it turned out that way, he’d figure it out, but…  “You’re making pretty big leaps, old man.  We don’t know anything other than the fact that he’s a pretty fantastic liar.”  _On paperwork, at least._  But then, Odin had been pretty believable in person, so… 

            “We know he’s well funded, has similarly trained friends, and is following your uncle’s pattern enough to have picked up a kid that he’s probably been teaching _exactly the same way_ as Odin did you and Junior,” Des reminded him soberly. 

            “Or he catered the life story to something that someone who knew him before might find believable,” Jake argued.  “No one’s even seen if there _is_ a girl with him yet.”  It was unlikely that there wasn’t, because why make a story only to poke that kind of hole into it, but seriously?  “You’re filling in the blanks with all the worst parts of me; come on, you know better.  At least give him a fair chance to prove he’s a person, instead of my evil twin.” 

            Des chuffed out a damp laugh.  “I _want_ to be wrong.” 

            “Well, just give it some time, then.  Don’t go starting trouble just because you’re bored; maybe you really _do_ need a job again.” 

            He curled in on himself a little.  “What I _need_ is my wife and son.  I…  I just started all over again, Jake, and I’m damn proud of you and my daughter but my family _needs_ me, and they’re… behind enemy lines.” 

            Jake sighed, nodding.  “I’ll fix that.” 

            “You’d better,” he groused.  “Knowing that is about the only reason I haven’t started climbing the walls.” 

            Yeah… he couldn’t blame him for that.  “No chance you can sleep, huh?”  He grinned when the man only raised his head enough to give him a clear ‘are-you-fucking-kidding-me’ look.  “Want to come meet Leia?” 

            Des grimaced, pulling away to run his hands over his face.  “I’m really not fit for company right now.” 

            “So, what, you’re going to hide in Krititz’ old room and mope?” 

            “If I damn well feel like it, _yes_ , I will,” he groused, flopping back onto the bed and ignoring the colonel.  “Go save my country from itself.” 

            Jake rolled his eyes, standing.  “You’re sending me mixed messages here,” he protested playfully. 

            “Go do something productive so I can make inappropriate phone calls to my wife.” 

            He snorted.  “That’s a thing?  And didn’t you just say she has a houseful of people?” 

            The asshole just pulled out his phone and started dialing. 

            Jake sighed and opened the door.  “Talk to you later, Des.” 

-

***

-

**Skopje, Macedonia – The Skyview**

            “Yes, I really do.  Greece isn’t anywhere near Italy, it’s fine.  No…  No that’s a cultural thing, that’s not…  Dad, I’m about five seconds from just hanging up, okay?  Calm down.” 

            Priya turned up the volume on her headphones and kept her eyes glued to her tablet’s screen despite the fact that it had just switched to a commercial break.  At times like this, she _really_ appreciated her mom.  Maybe there’d been a few times when she was little that she’d wished she had a dad – well, a _real_ dad, anyway – but then she’d see how controlling other people’s parents could get and just… no.  She liked Courtney, but sometimes it seemed like Mrs. Cavanaugh _liked_ someone being in charge of her.  If she really disagreed with Fred, she’d roll her eyes and ignore him and smile until he got over it, but for the most part…?  Priya didn’t get it. 

            Not that Taylor’s parents disagreed very often – mostly, it had only started to get weird after Tay had started university, and now it was Tay and Fred that butted heads while Courtney stood to the side and smiled enigmatically, refusing to take sides.  That was, like… a normal issue, with boys and their dads, right?  Figuring out new boundaries when the kid starts spreading their wings?  But still – for all his good intentions, the way Fred tried to control his family’s lives in the name of protecting them rubbed her the wrong way. 

            _Even when it’s totally justified,_ she reasoned guiltily. 

            It had been less than a week, and she was already starting to think she shouldn’t have brought Tay to Earth.  They hadn’t come across another mass impression yet like in Amsterdam, which was maybe a good thing?  But even so, it had taken maybe a day before his lips thinned and he started wearing his favorite gloves on top of keeping his hands in his pockets.  Him not wanting to touch stuff was normal, but wanting the calm of Courtney’s knitting while _still_ refusing to touch anything was… not a great sign.  On top of that, with all the unexplained delays they’d faced trying to leave L1, let alone the Lunar Center, it had now _definitely_ been too long since Quatre had stayed the night in this suite for Tay to pick up anything useful. 

            The only bright side was that he was _sure_ that it had been Quatre he felt in Amsterdam, and given the timing, her lingering concern that someone else had picked up his papers for Katriel Dimardin were gone.  He was alive and she’d been on to _something_ , and that was good to have confirmed.  Permilla had passed on the news last month that while another of his identities had been listed as dead in the Cambyses conflict, at least one of the men he’d led was convinced ‘Robby Stanton’ had survived – and he’d apparently known enough telling details to suggest that it really might have been Quatre.  However, given the fact that all they had was a relatively common name on a piece of paper and a physical description that included brown eyes, it might be a dead end. 

            But Robby had been reported dead in Libya less than two weeks before Katriel Dimardin resurfaced in Egypt.  They hadn’t _known_ anything turned up on the Robin Stanton identity until late August, but in hindsight?  That was interesting timing. 

            Inez was following up on that angle; she’d already committed to the Stanton identity enough to help rehabilitate the survivors of Robby’s squad, after all, and was well set up for it.  Permilla had scoffed something dismissive about sowing wild oats – though Priya was still trying to figure out how starting a philanthropic organization qualified for _that_ , exactly – but Inez had only smiled in that happy sphinx way her mom said she’d inherited from their mom and made a throwaway comment about playing the long game. 

            Whether she meant that from a personnel angle or directed towards support of the massive PR campaign about the Cambyses survivors presented by the Osborne Foundation and firmly backed by Princess Relena and RLTT was anyone’s guess.  Julianne was the only one who was ever able to get anything out of Inez when she got that look, but when Priya had tried asking, the other girl had only laughed delightedly for nearly a full minute before hanging up. 

            _Whatever._   You didn’t get to choose family, and the spaceborn girls could be a bunch of enigmatic bitches sometimes.  She’d figure it out or hear back eventually. 

            In any case, the cultural precedent being set with the propaganda was interesting.  Whether or not he had anything to do with Quatre, Robby Stanton had been the leader of the first Cambyses camp anyone came in contact with, and had been utterly against the organization.  He’d been the one to broker the deal with the Strike Force to turn the tide of cult victims back against the psychos in charge… was honestly the reason they were able to see the survivors as anything but monsters at all. 

            If the first groups Colonel Mitchell encountered had been as bloodthirsty as rumor suggested?  If their first interactions had been as grisly expected, before contact was made?  _So much for having any faith in humanity._   As it was, people were talking about the martyr now as a kind of leading example; practically common knowledge on the same level as the Dutchman. 

            If that was her brother, then she was damn proud.  And if he was just some random guy, then, well, Inez had claimed him, so they’d rock it anyway.  Either way, with how things were spinning out they should be able to either bring him back from the dead with accepting fanfare or rebrand him with a new name and let him carry on.  You didn’t just ignore people like that – you collected those gems. 

            “I know, Mom.  I’m sorry.  Thanks, I… it needed to happen sooner or later, right?  World doesn’t just stand back and wait for you, you know?”  A sigh.  “I’ll think about it.  And no she’s not here, you can’t-”  He cut himself off with a groan.  “ _Bye_ , I’ll talk to you later.  I love you too.”  Taylor dropped onto the bed next to her heavily, throwing his arms over his head.  “Family is crazy,” he complained.  “I can hardly wait until Ainslee starts rocking the boat, just so they have someone else to focus on.” 

            Priya unplugged her headphones – letting the sound switch to speaker – and twisted to look at him.  “Isn’t she super boy crazy already?” 

            Tay grinned hugely.  “She’s been smart enough to not bring any of them home, so Dad hasn’t noticed.  Mom has, but she _respects_ boundaries so long as Lee’s not stupid about it, and Russel’s too focused on soccer league to have noticed she’s gone all the time.  Dad thinks she’s joined a _photography club_.” 

            She snickered, rolling over to lay on her stomach and elbows near him.  “That’s going to blow up in her face hardcore.” 

            “It’s going to be _fantastic_ ,” Tay agreed, scooting further onto the mattress and stretching out more.  “I told her it was a bad idea, and I’m just going to point and laugh when she proves me right.” 

            She snickered.  “Brotherly love, right there.” 

            He snorted.  “Like you and Ailané are any different.” 

            “Oh my God, like Ailané can be bothered to even notice what month it is, let alone roll her eyes at what mischief I’ve gotten up to lately,” she complained.  “This degree is _ruining_ her!  She used to be fun.” 

            Tay elbowed her.  “How can anyone be ruined at twenty?  Anyway, school can be hard – I’m sure she’ll be fun to hang out with again once she comes up for air.” 

            Priya rolled her eyes.  He wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the point.  “You didn’t become a hermit when you got your Master’s,” she reminded him. 

            “Wow, way to judge,” he complained, sitting up on his elbows.  “I never had to write papers, or do research, or clock clinical hours.  I just had lecture and work, and math is easy.  Every time I check in with Aila, she’s in the middle of, like, some new twenty-page dissertation or thesis – it’s horrible.  My brain would be _goo_ by now.” 

            She made a face.  “I just don’t get it.  What’s the _point_?” 

            Taylor was obviously fighting to keep a straight face.  “Winning.” 

            Priya groaned and belly flopped herself across him to reach for one of the bed’s pillows – he started laughing even before she started smacking him with it.  “ _Lame_!” 

            Bringing up one knee to shove her off, he laughed harder and started grabbing at the pillow, trying to take it away from her.  “Winning at everything!” he went on cheerfully, switching into a game show announcer sort of voice.  “Even at things you can’t normally win at!  Like-” 

            “You are so _dumb_!” she shrieked, dropping all her weight into her hands so the stupid pillow covered his face.  It meant he got his arms around it, but it only took a second to grab a second one from the head of the bed. 

            **_“-holding their countrymen hostage.”_**

            “-irony!  And art!” 

            “I _hate_ that meme!” she whined, smacking at him… then narrowing her eyes and dropping her rear on his solar plexus so he _shut up_.  He guffawed and gasped, but still looked like he was trying not to laugh hysterically as he half-heartedly batted away at the pillow she was smacking at his face.  “Nobody’s brought it up in _years_ , and you just had to go and ruin it!” 

            **_“If we cannot learn from the violence of the past five years, cannot advance-”_**  

            “Four hundred babies,” Tay wheezed defiantly. 

            “Shut up,” Priya ordered, frowning and looking around for her tablet.  That sounded like Princess Relena’s voice.  _Like thirty wasn’t dysfunctional enough._   She couldn’t hear it now, which meant the speaker was buried…  She bounced hard onto her knees experimentally.  There was another blip of sound, but not enough to really make any sense out of.  “I think you’re on top of the TV.” 

            He coughed and curled in a ball, rolling closer to her – and the princess’ voice came through more clearly again. 

            **_“-unforgivable.  These actions are an absolutely senseless waste of lives for little more than pride over lines on a map.”_**  

            Priya blew out her breath in a low whistle.  _She sounds **furious**._  

            **_“There are more ways to achieve autonomy than violence, and whatever your grievances with the Peacecraft Regime such action is entirely unacceptable.  I am only willing to open talks is for the sake of the citizens that would be endangered by military action.  Every single time another of these conflicts breaks out, more innocent lives are lost; more homes destroyed, more livelihoods left in ruins.  I should think that our people have been through enough after the Fall.  We have spent the past three years struggling to rebuild – I will not allow all our labors to end in the fires of egocentric revolution.  Not again.  _**

**_“If I receive no response for a truce inside the next-  Excuse me?”_**  

            Taylor jerked to one side with a frown at the abrupt change in the princess’ tone, twisting at a weird angle to try to see the screen he’d been laying on.  “That’s not good.” 

            “Shh.” 

            He made a helpless sort of grabbing gesture at her, trying to look behind himself.  “Pick it up, I want to see her face-” 

            “Shh!”  All the same, she pulled him closer to her and tugged at the blankets to try and see where they were heaviest and _find_ the damn thing. 

            **_“Well then.”_**   The scorn in the royal’s voice was biting.  **_“This conference is over.  No questions.  Feel free to turn the channel to your preferred news station for further updates.”_**  

            There was a swell of noise from the crowd as Priya finally managed to pull the tablet free of the bedding, but Relena was already walking off stage, expression hard.  Tay made an annoyed noise, rolling away from her and pulling his phone out of his back pocket to refresh his newspaper app, making an annoyed noise and immediately switching to video.  “Don’t turn it off, whatever just happened isn’t in print yet-” 

            “She’s the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I’m pretty sure she gets word before the papers,” she reminded him, scooting back towards the head of the bed.  The reporters were doing a mildly panicky thing in the crowd, and whoever was in charge of the camera was evidently debating if anyone else was going to come on stage to explain or if they should revert back to their home station. 

            “Well, from the sounds of it, she sure as hell wasn’t in the loop this time,” Tay argued, sitting up and refreshing his screen again.  “Either that, or something really damn big _besides_ Italy just went down, and she sounds too pissed to be dealing with a sudden emergency.  I’ll bet you someone just stepped on her toes, and considering what she was just about to say?” 

            _Oh **no**._   Her stomach dropped out.  “They’ve been showing a unified front,” she protested automatically.  Peacecraft had more or less handed the reigns off to his little sister when he went to deal with the rebellion in space, everyone knew that- 

            “I’m getting the feeling big brother gave military command to someone _other_ than her,” Taylor decided, voice dry.  “Someone who really dropped the ball when it came to _talking_ with Foreign Affairs this morning and might have just FUBARed the past two years of Regime public relations.  We just saw the start of a major faction schism.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know which way it’ll go, but literally _everyone_ just saw that break-up; they can’t take it back.”  He grinned over at her.  “Politics just got a lot more interesting.” 

-

***

-

**Szczecin, Poland**

            “So if we use three different people on this end, that should cover it?” Audi confirmed, biting at her lip. 

            “On top of the diversification we already claimed on Odin’s shares, yes,” Quatre agreed.  “It’s a puppet show; he can control it from the core without anyone being the wiser.” 

            The girl made a face.  “Aren’t any of your guys good at this kind of thing?” 

            He frowned, glancing out the patio door to where Odin was leaning against the balcony with his back to them, his phone pressed to one ear.  “He likes to be in control.” 

            She rolled her eyes.  “He’s also busy, Cat, and he multitasks because he _has_ to, not because his brain’ll leak out his ears if he doesn’t give it enough to do.  Seriously, like… _delegate_.” 

            _…She’s annoyed with me._   He’d noticed both her and Odin being a little irritable all day, but it hadn’t seemed to have a focus until now.  Odin had been _relieved_ when Lu called again and he had an excuse to duck out of the room, but the situation – both in terms of coordinating their assets and everything with Italy – was stressful enough to warrant it.  “What am I missing?” 

            Audi rolled her eyes, exasperation and fondness edging around the annoyance.  “Stuff you can totally figure out without me holding your hand.  Do you have a couple people already with business smarts, or not?” 

            He frowned.  “Jalee and Sio were both entrepreneurs, before the Fall,” he admitted.  “Raph, Cidney, Ethan, and Jon have strong management experience.”  Ardith might be an even better choice in some ways, but he’d been more of a white collar thief with a degree in corporate espionage than a businessman. 

            Relief, while the annoyance faded out entirely.  “Alright, cool.  Just…  point that kind of thing out to him and roll with it, huh?” 

            Still frowning, he focused back on Odin’s emotions, staring down at his own hands.  There was an edge to his mood that had been lingering the for the past week; one that had disappeared while he focused on his conversation with Lucrezia…  A conversation that, from what he understood, was probably a different kind of stressful, not social.  _Hmm._   On its own, he’d be willing to dismiss it as the influence of their relationship, but that… didn’t quite fit, did it? 

            “Any ideas what he’d rather be doing, if this wasn’t pressing?” he asked idly, feeling out an idea.  The timeline was irking him too, now that he knew the Maguanacs were accepting of Cambyses – that _Rashid_ was back.  The business end of Odin’s inheritance had to be sorted out before the old account manager could get a handle on just what they were doing, though, and it was the foundation of at least the next few years, if not the rest of their lives, so he didn’t want to rush… and he’d assumed it was important to _include_ the friend it belonged to.  It was frustrating, but he knew he’d been _furious_ any time his father had tried to shortcut something for him while he was learning. 

            If he was reading Audi right, though, that might be sheer _reflection_.  He knew his friend well enough to say that they thought on entirely different wavelengths… but before Jerusalem, the other man had been downright neurotic about controlling their resources – or at least being entirely aware of their deficits, when that failed. 

            Smug pleasure, something close to calculation…  He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the girl as she spoke again.  “You said there’s still some Zero drives missing that you’d prefer to have before you start trying to reconstruct the System, yeah?” 

            Quatre grimaced.  “They’re in the States.”  It was a damn good thing Asia had been too chaotic during the latter half of the war for Odin to have tried planting more than one drive there, and Japan was feasibly reachable, but at the same time…  North America was an obstacle they might not overcome.  “I can probably put it together from what I have, but it will take longer.” 

            “He went to South America with Lucrezia,” she pointed out easily.  “And Adam’s run around the Gulf of Mexico at least a couple times, maybe more.” 

            “It’s _November_ ,” he reminded her. 

            She shrugged.  “So, like… last chance before winter really sets in?  A lot of him putting it off was Lucrezia and everyone else on his level being either too busy or out of touch to watch his back over there and him being too awkward to ask you to make time for it – he doesn’t like asking favors, and he didn’t want to go without an equal partner.  If you suggest he get Adam on board and go, you can do all this faster without dragging him through the drudgery of it, and I think I can mostly keep up.”  An abrupt flood of excitement.  “I mean…  it’s kinda fantastic.  I don’t get why my mom always said business sucked, I just want to sit and _play_ with it, but the more we focus on it, the more Odin’s doing his miserable turtle thing, and it’s _awful_.” 

            She pouted at him, eyes determined.  “We can make him feel better _and_ optimize this better/faster if he runs off to do the stuff he _likes_ doing.  He’s just going along with this because he thinks he _has_ to – the only time I’ve seen him this down but slogging through crap instead of just ditching is his physical therapy, and he at least feels better after that.  This, like… doesn’t _end_.  The more complicated this gets, the more…”  She made a face.  “I don’t have a good word for it, but he’s not happy, okay?  He’s trying not to show it, but the last time he was this down was when he wasn’t allowed to get out of bed for three weeks.” 

            _Well, now I feel like an asshole._   He was the empath, too – shouldn’t he have picked up on some of that?  _On the other hand, it’s good to know that Odin’s version of depressed is so far removed from Heero’s that I couldn’t **tell**._   He trusted Audi’s impressions of her mentor enough that he didn’t doubt she had the right of it.  _I’m going to have to work on that._  

            A lot of what made Odin’s presence so calming made him difficult to read; he was all ripples in deep water instead of the fireworks display most put on.  “He wants literally nothing to do with this, does he?” 

            She made a face.  “Probably not _nothing_ , but…  I don’t know.  He hasn’t _talked_ about what’s bothering him, and it’s not quite bad enough that I got to asking yet – I don’t know _what_ is wrong yet, just that it _is_ , you know?  If you weren’t here, I’d go figure it out, but, well…”  She shrugged.  “You’re probably better for it?  I don’t know if I can _fix_ what’s going on, but you probably can?  I thought I’d try that first.” 

            …There were times when he just wanted to _adopt_ Audi.  She was brilliant and sweet enough that he just wanted to claim and keep her, even when she was being a little shit. 

            The balcony door slid open.  “The Regime has the rebellion entirely circled with superior suits and a six to one manpower advantage, closing in fast,” Odin announced as he came back in, phone tucked away.  “They’ve shut down all the air traffic within three hundred miles and are shooting down anything that tries to go in or out.” 

            Quatre raised his brows, impressed in spite of himself.  “It’s been… eight hours since they learned about the coup.” 

            Odin nodded, heading over to the fridge.  “Zechs anticipated this, and set everything up for it before he left.  He’s wising up, too – there’s no record of where these troops were deployed from in his database.” 

            Audi frowned, sinking into a spot of upset.  “The same as like with my mom.” 

            Odin nodded tightly, pulling sandwich makings out and setting them on the counter without looking back their way.  “I was hoping that was a singular incident, based on how valuable a hostage she makes,” he admitted.  “But this is bigger than a single woman.  We already knew the details on the space campaign were being kept on a separate, closed circuit; that makes sense just due to the distance involved, but he might have started to partition everything.  Initial reactions to the Italian response suggest he’s hiding operations from his own people when they’re not directly involved; it’s something I would have done form the start, but the change means he’s either decided to start holding his cards a lot closer to his chest, or that he might be aware of the possibility of a leak.  Lucrezia thinks there’s still too much valuable information floating around the primary Regime database for him to have decided it’s compromised, but I’m less sure.”  Turning on the sink, he set to washing his hands.  “Do either of you want anything?” 

            “Ooh, do we have any tuna left?” Audi asked, stretching as she stood to join him at the sink. 

            A spark of something bright from Odin as he blinked at his hands, then smiled.  “If we do, it would be in the pantry.” 

            The girl nodded, bumping elbows with his as she washed her hands too.  “And pickles, yeah?  I know we have cheese – I saw Felix making a tuna melt the other day and it looked pretty easy.” 

            The spark flared and settled into something more… _happy_ than the initial sheer attention.  “That sounds good.” 

            Quatre stood as well, heading for the pantry.  “If we don’t have any in here, Dana probably does,” he mused.  Both he and Felix insisted that the preserved fish was a dietary staple, and had grabbed it at first opportunity whenever they found cans in Libya.  Now that it was easy to get a hold of, he didn’t imagine they would have changed their minds.  That, and Don had groused about making sure all the occupied kitchens were stocked with the basics after the first week – which in turn had Skye and Bern working up a standard baseline of supplies for all property kitchens while Ethan, MJ, and Charlie did the same for other household supplies. 

            He was glad; he could have done it, after pulling everything together to keep them alive in Cambyses, but it was… nice, to know he didn’t have to.  He’d missed the trust he’d only ever really had for the Maguanacs while he held himself as dictator in the Sahara for sake of survival, and… 

            _Well, that explains what Audi was talking about, doesn’t it?_   Before Cambyses, he’d never had to manage a household – even taking care of his own day-to-day needs during the war had been new, for all that he’d risen to the challenge.  He _could_ do it, of course, and he preferred to handle his own affairs for the most part, now… but that didn’t make it anything less than a chore. 

            Deciding he was hungry too, he pulled out enough tuna for the three of them and then a bit more, unsure of Audi’s exact plans.  The girl gave him a questioning look and smiled when he nodded, drying off her hands and opening cabinets to look for a mixing bowl.  “Get out some more,” she added as she searched.  “We haven’t seen Cory or Yasa in a bit, and if they already ate, it won’t hurt to have extra tuna salad in the fridge for later.  I’ll eat it, if nothing else.” 

            _Or someone else will,_ Quatre thought absently, turning back around.  Leftovers never lasted long with so many people in one spot, even with them all starting to disperse across other properties. 

            His own hands dry and his apprentice having effectively taken over the kitchen, Odin shrugged and picked their glasses off the table to refill them from the sink.  “What next?” 

            Unfiltered anticipation came distinctly from Marie, though you’d never know it from her body language, but Odin was more complicated to filter out.  Calm, contentment, determination… 

            _…Resignation._   It was buried, and the frustration had blanked out entirely since he’d come back from his phone call, but that, more than anything, let him know that Audi had hit the nail on the head.  _He could have just said something,_ he groused internally, even as he knew it wasn’t as simple as that.  Like Audi had said, their friend didn’t ask for help unless he was entirely at loose ends, except perhaps from the girl – he waited for others to ask if he had preferences, and if they didn’t, he just… did whatever no one else looked eager to tackle.  He had been taking care of himself all his life, as far as Quatre could tell – having help was a boon he was still getting used to, not an expectation. 

            Still, approaching the issue directly wasn’t necessary – at least not yet, when there were legitimate multiple concerns – and actions spoke louder than words.  Hindsight was an effective tool for explaining motives.  “Does Lucrezia still think she’ll need you?” he asked instead of answering. 

            “Hn, doubtful,” Odin admitted, sitting down at the breakfast bar to watch Audi work instead of returning to the table; after a moment, Quatre joined him.  “It was a contingency plan to start with, and at this point it’s obvious the army has the situation under control.  I don’t want to go to space until the Italian situation is resolved just in case, or head further north, but at this rate that will only take a few more days.” 

            Quatre made a contemplative noise.  “Space is less of a concern,” he dismissed.  “Audi said something that reminded me of the weather patterns – they’re supposed to hold for another week or two before we start sliding into true winter, which is more time than I thought we’d have.  I’d have to check on how true the same is over in North America, but what do you think your chances would be of getting a couple more Zero drives?” 

            That bright spark again, though submerged quickly enough that he couldn’t make out what it was beyond warm, whatever that meant.  Determination shifted into that knife-sharp focus he usually associated the other man with as he thought.  “Fair, for three,” he decided after a moment.  “Possibly as many as five, but… No.”  He shook his head.  “Two, for certain.”  He turned a calculating eye on Quatre, something… _thrumming_ , for lack of a better word, somewhere deep.  The empath didn’t have even the slightest idea how to define it, beyond being mostly sure it was positive.  “Would two more be worth the effort?” 

            “Frankly, yes.”  More was better, but if he’d known there were decent odds of getting just _one_ more of the missing drives, he’d have already pushed for this.  “Two would shave two months off reassembly.”  _If not more_.  He hadn’t ordered the hard drives in any way that Heero would have been able to determine, but for better or worse, four of the seven drives still in the Americas were sequential.  Some gaps, he’d known he could work around before handing the pieces over – large gaps too, though it would take a lot more work.  He was intelligent, but his memory was far from eidetic.  Given enough time, he was confident he could reconstruct the Zero system without _any_ guide, but it was complex and convoluted enough that it would take _years_ of working back through the logic of the code and all its idiosyncrasies, the variables he would have to recalculate parameters for and test repeatedly. 

            They already had the more insane segments that would have had him ready to pull out his hair safely collected, so there was that, but he had resigned himself spending the winter months painstakingly rebuilding the missing sections.  With the addition of the Japanese drive, he’d figured he might be able to manage it inside eight months, if they couldn’t get their hands on any more of them.  Given the state of the Americas, it was entirely possible the remainder had been destroyed, after all.  But if he could get as many as _five_ of those seven…  it might be as feasible as four months?  Depending on when the thaws took and another excavation could be chanced, they might be able to shave it down again, but he wasn’t inclined to get his hopes up. 

            “If you don’t mind me taking over, I can resolve the rest of this in the next two weeks,” he continued, gesturing at the table for emphasis.  “Possibly less, since the majority of your colonial assets are already arranged in cryptocurrency – that means we don’t have to play nearly as complex of a shell game.  So long as you trust my judgment on finalizing the options we already talked about, we’re set.” 

            Suspicion swirled under the surface as Odin gave him an unreadable look.  After a long moment, he pointed out, “Given the rest of our projects, I won’t have the time to effectively catch up with your knowledge base for a long time.  You’ll be accountable for direct control of this mess for months, if not years.  If I go now, I won’t-” 

            “My father never micromanaged on the scale that I’m enforcing,” Quatre cut off.  If they were going to have this conversation now, he wanted there to be no misunderstandings.  “He had accounting and acquisition staff for that, division boards and department heads he delegated nearly everything to and observed.  I learned most of this from my sisters who handled smaller capital and I’m applying it on a scale that would make most CEOs shudder because I _enjoy the rush_ , Odin.”  He gave him a meaningful look.  “I was teaching you more than the basics because I assumed you’d _want_ me out sooner than later.  And even then, I assumed you would still keep staff so this didn’t become a full-time job.  That’s…”  He grasped for the right word. 

            “It’s what normal people do,” Audi inserted, squeezing mayo into the bowl.  “Which, you know, you’re totally not, but you don’t have to specialize in _everything_ unless you really want to.  You’ve got enough stuff to do that _doesn’t_ stress you right the crap out.” 

            “And given the time constraints you already mentioned, even if you decide to pursue this later, this _is_ the optimal solution,” Quatre continued.  _God, he referred to his **inheritance** as a **mess**._   Most people in his shoes would be running rampant doing whatever struck their fancy for at least a handful of weeks afterwards, not buckling down and treating it like a disaster. 

            Less suspicion, more calculation, and that thrum was back.  “We didn’t anticipate this,” his friend argued.  “It’s far outside even the widest parameters for what you agreed to accept responsibility for.” 

            The succinctly mechanical organization of his speech was sounding more and more uncomfortably like the disturbed boy he’d known when they both flew gundams instead of the much more balanced teenager he’d reunited with in Greece.  It was unsettling in a way that frankly infuriated him, because there was _no reason_ for it. 

            _Time to change tactics._   He was still acting like this was a _burden_ instead of a golden opportunity.  “I’d have sworn I already said I _like_ this level of control,” he announced, voice sharper than he’d really intended.  This entire situation was absurd, and it was getting to him.  “I was just trying to play fair – if I hadn’t thought you would be insulted, I’d have taken over and be done in half the time.  I’d be appraising you of the results now so we could plan out next step, and you wouldn’t be half so frustrated and overwhelmed because you were holding me back from _enjoying myself_.” 

            He’d been raised to take over freaking Winner Corporation, and while he genuinely liked people enough to make concessions, but that didn’t mean he _wasn’t_ an egotist.  He knew damn well exactly what he was capable of and how good he was at it, and he _had_ pride.  The fact that he’d managed to hurt his friend while trying to hold himself in check to be _nice_ was maddening. 

            “…Aa.” 

            “For the record, _I_ am really glad you’re willing to teach,” Audi announced without looking up from the relish she was spooning into her mixture.  “Even if you decide to stop, I’m with you on the power rush thing and totally want to be one of the people you delegate to.  At least until I get my own massive inheritance to go crazy with.” 

            Quatre rolled his eyes at the girl being ridiculous, but amusement lit up the room like a firework as Odin started laughing, strong enough to practically white everything else out.  He could see how smugly pleased Audi was just from her face, however, with no need for empathy; excited amusement a mirror to Odin’s.  _Some sort of inside joke?_  

            Shaking his head, he let it go and went back to the table to grab a tablet to look up global weather patterns before making his way back to the bar.  He’d need to keep an eye on Odin’s deeper emotions to make sure this didn’t crop up again, but now that he’d recognized the misplaced guilt once, he was relatively sure he could find it without prompting should the pattern repeat.  Honestly, he should have picked it up on his own, but… sometimes it was hard to reconcile Heero’s dogged resolve with Odin’s nonchalant… wanderlust, for lack of a better word.  Looking back, it wasn’t as if the latter had been entirely absent before Israel, just… suppressed. 

            He resisted the urge to grimace.  Really, bringing personality traits that were less critical to survival back to the surface _couldn’t_ be anything less than traumatic.  Maybe it wasn’t so bad as he’d expected when he started sinking Robby firmly into the grave, but it still wasn’t easy… and the longer he thought about it, the more he realized that the war had been Odin’s crucible. 

            The same as he was now willing to admit Cambyses had been his own.  He still wasn’t sure what he thought of the final result, but if befriending Heero had taught him anything over the years, it was that perseverance made all the difference.  If you lasted, you always had more time to re-evaluate, then either change and atone or follow through with everything you had.  His knee-jerk reaction to the philosophy had been to insist it was a way to unfairly absolve yourself of guilt, but… if anything, the attitude only increased personal accountability. 

            It just felt off because didn’t leave any room for _regret_. 

            One of the very few things he’d ever seen Odin argue vehemently about was how regret was entirely worthless.  There was definitely a story there, but he hadn’t been brave enough to ask.  Whatever had happened, it had _made_ his friend into who he was, and considering the other glimmers he’d gotten about the man’s childhood…  He wasn’t sure if he was ready to stomach the truth. 

            _Not yet._   He was still coming to terms with some of the things he’d done in the name of survival in the Sahara.  He’d ask once his headspace was a little less fractured… and maybe Odin’s footing would be a little more steady by then too; because however solid the man seemed, the cracks still ran deep. 

            He thought they were on a pretty good track for repairing the damage, though, and coming out all the stronger for it. 

            “So,” he decided.  “Check in with Adam and anyone else you want at your back while you’re gone, and plot a route.  Audi and I will wrap things up here.”  Odin had already laid out enough details for Darren and Josh to pick up the drive in Osaka next week, provided it had survived the apocalyptic tsunami of the Fall that had massacred the island nation.  Personally he doubted it, as all but the highest mountains in most of Oceania had stayed underwater for nearly a month post-Fall, but Odin insisted that the container he’d used could very well have maintained the seal – his concern was more about if it had washed away or was buried in too much debris to retrieve.  “Then once you’re back, barring other complications…”  He licked his lips.  “Sudan.” 

            Part of him wanted to go and see Rashid _now_ , timetables be damned.  Another part, however, was entirely content with the idea of avoiding everyone he used to know outside of Heero for the rest of his _life_ , regardless of what he’d learned from Yasa, experience, or literally anything else. 

            Lining events up in a logical pattern was a compromise he’d forced himself to accept.  His emotions on the subject were too scattered to base anything off of… and he’d have Odin with him, choosing Sudan as the meeting ground.  With Odin vouching for him, he could go directly to Rashid before anyone recognized him… and while he _felt_ like that confrontation would be damnation, he knew, rationally, that it would be _fine_. 

            Getting that over with, _proving_ that it would be okay, might make the idea of facing his sisters less daunting.  Since leaving the desert, he’d been waffling endlessly between whose judgment would be worse until he decided he wasn’t ready for either, even when he knew he was being ridiculous.  There had been enough to get done otherwise that it hadn’t felt like that big of a deal to just… put it off again.  The fact that he knew exactly what he was doing hadn’t made him any more eager to start the landslide; at least, not until he’d met Yasashiku and realized he might be making up drama for the sake of drama, at this point.  Which was aggravating as hell. 

            And getting old fast.  He’d been running himself in circles for more than three months now – the novelty of neurosis had worn off and he was frankly just… getting tired of it.  The fact that he more or less had a guarantee now that he wouldn’t be rejected sealed the deal, but the way he’d been heading, he suspected he would have started to cave before the New Year even without the push. 

            “Aa,” Odin murmured agreeably, watching Audi mix the salad, more relaxed than he’d felt in… at least two weeks.  It had to have built up slowly, for Quatre to have missed just how much tension there was…  Though he’d also been willing to pin any excess on the revelations of looking up his fingerprints, not the specifics to do with economic management. 

            Resisting the urge to make a face, he smiled and tapped out the tablet’s pin.  _Don’t bother with remorse – just learn from it and don’t let it happen again._   Just because Odin set his personal happiness at a lower priority didn’t mean Quatre had to.  If anything, as his friend, he was going to make sure it didn’t get left by the wayside again.  _I can’t let the thirteen-year-old outmaneuver me all the time,_ he decided, swallowing a grin. 

            Between the two of them, he figured they’d do all right. 

-

***

-

**November 3 rd 198 – Sunday – China**

            “Welcome home,” Wufei muttered without shifting his attention from his desk, trying to finish what he was in the middle of without being entirely rude.  Shui had been gone for three weeks after all, and he’d started to miss his roommate practically in spite of himself – he only went to the Lao household in the evenings, after all.  Xiu Juan didn’t care for work being brought into her home.  “Was I right about the Toksun layout?”  They’d been debating if there would be any appreciable difference in the change, before the other man left to survey. 

            There was a tired sigh from behind him as Shui dropped his suitcase and shuffled over to his bed.  “I don’t know.” 

            Wufei frowned, looking up and narrowing his eyes.  He was already back a day later than planned, so- 

            His jaw clenched as he _saw_ his friend and he tossed his pencil down a little more forcefully than necessary as he stood and moved over to him.  “What happened?” 

            Shui shrugged against his pillow without opening his eyes.  “A group of assholes over in Shaanxi figured I might make for decent leverage.  Captain Yuen said I was with them for almost six days.”  He sighed, relaxing further.  “On the bright side, at least now I know I’m not expendable?  Yi really pulled out all the stops to get me back and, uh… show why the rebels should get better ideas in the future.” 

            “Of course you’re not expendable,” Wufei scoffed as he crouched beside the other man’s bed, eying his face.  Both eyes were bruised black, though starting to fade, and he had two plasters on his face covering what were probably stitches; his neck was a mess of green and yellow.  It was a wonder his voice sounded so clear as it did… and that was without considering any injuries below his collarbones. 

            Shui was strictly a non-combatant – he didn’t even know how to fall properly.  A common _mugger_ could probably concuss him, and he’d just spent a week in _hell_.  If they’d tried the same trick with Wufei, they would have been put in place inside the hour. 

            …Wufei had used his higher position over Shui to keep from being sent out to survey in the first place.  _Fuck._   “Are you ready to be out of the hospital?”  Given the way he was just collapsing in on himself now… 

            “I finished my first Remalene treatment yesterday, before we flew back from Wanzhou,” the other man explained sleepily.  “It was…”  He yawned, eyes still shut.  “Really big?  I dunno, I heard the doctors argue about how big the dose was, but I’ve never had it before…  I just want to sleep.  They said I could sleep at home if I wanted, and I think I can sleep laying down again, so that’s…”  He yawned again, fingers starting to fumble at his blankets.  “”m home, I just wanna sleep, don’t worry.  You could play that classical shit…”  He blinked his eyes open and frowned at the edge of his comforter that he’d managed to peel back with confusion.  “Ugh.” 

            _Well, at least the doctors gave him adequate painkillers along with his hefty Remalene dose._  Wufei recognized that haze over his eyes.  Shaking his head, he stood back up and started pulling the other man’s shoes off.  “I thought you hated my music,” he offered casually.  His roommate would blast rock and pop all day if Wufei let him. 

            “It’s _old_ ,” Shui whined, sitting up a little on his elbows and pulling the rest of the blanket and the sheets down from the head of the bed.  “And _dull_.  And nothing to sing to.” 

            To the best of his knowledge, Shui relegated any singing either to the shower, or when Wufei wasn’t home – probably for the best, given his shitty taste.  “But?” he asked curiously. 

            “It’s nice,” Shui admitted.  “Boring, but _nice_.  Nice sounds good.”  He scowled at the bed.  “I’m doing this wrong.”

            Wufei snorted out a laugh and leveraged his friend up for a moment so he could drop him on the cleared space next to his pillow.  Shui let out a yip of surprise, then groaned as he watched Wufei finish pulling the sheets back.  “I’ve _never_ been this drunk before.” 

            Wufei smirked as he shifted the other man around so he was laying down again and pulled the covers over him.  “You still haven’t.  Go to sleep – I’ll put on some boring music to help me think.”  Whether it would be about anything related to engineering was up in the air, but he needed to _think_ , to be sure. 

            This… wasn’t okay. 

            “Okay,” Shui grumbled back… and almost immediately began to snore. 

            Wufei went through the motions of putting on one of his favorite mixes… mostly done with traditional instruments, but not actually that old _or_ classical, despite Shui’s complaints.  Lyrics were distracting, and repetitive beats had a way of putting him in a creative rut.  He liked to work in the quiet too, but sometimes it helped – and Shui had asked. 

            Shui made it a point to rarely ask him for anything.  Two grown men used to their independence living in a dorm like this had been a hard thing to get used to at first, and Shui had been quick to lay out boundaries and rules for them to follow.  Wufei hadn’t argued, or added anything to it, despite Shui suggesting he did.  It had galled a little, but also been easier for him, having grown up at boarding school in the exact same living situation, only with Xutao instead of Shui.  Now, after almost three years, the idea of _not_ living with his co-worker was unsettling to the point that he’d refused when he was offered his own, nicer apartment two months ago. 

            Eventually Shui would move out, and he’d figure something out then, but Wufei had no interest in changing the status quo. 

            Maybe he was attached because the dorm made everything feel a little more normal.  Working, doing what he liked more than anything, instead of the curriculum he’d scorned as much as appreciated.  Keeping a friendly rivalry with Shui on the academic front, instead of pretending he didn’t notice Xu trying – and failing – to _be_ his competition outside the classroom.  Socializing with the Lao family whenever he wasn’t working, the same way he had with the Longs when he was younger; like he’d been expected to again, after his marriage to Meilan.  Only, Yi Hsuan had passed two years before the nuptials, and Xiu Juan was too headstrong to he _anyone’s_ replacement, even his dead mother-in-law. 

            Also, thank _fuck_ no one expected him to marry Yu Zi.  That was a cultural failure he was supremely happy the Laos didn’t agree with.  Meilan had been a force to be reckoned with, and tradition had shackled her to the position of little more than brood mare.  At _fourteen_.  The idea had disgusted him even when it was first broached, when he was eight, to the point where he went out of his way to avoid women in general and publicly scorn the idea of women doing anything but the most traditional roles, in the hope that either his father would pick someone whose dreams he wouldn’t crush, or Yi Hsuan would be unimpressed enough to look elsewhere.  Of course, that plan had backfired spectacularly when the woman saw through him, but he had _tried_. 

            He’d known, as soon as he was old enough to understand that most fathers didn’t seclude their sons from other children to better train and educate them into oblivion, that he would never escape his father’s intentions, his _plans_ for him until he was a legal adult; but Chang Xiung had cared enough about him, despite how broken the widower was, that Wufei had hoped the man could at least be swayed on the details.  Instead, his father’s Will had signed away both Wufei and Meilan’s chance at happiness by throwing them together and insisting it was ‘for the best’.  And maybe they would have both overcome the resentment in time, because he _had_ cared about her, and she had died to save him, so she must have too, but… 

            In the end of the day, Meilan had died at fourteen three months after marrying him, and after that it was impossible to not _hate_ everything that had led to it. 

            Now, looking on the past and trying to learn from it, looking at his present and what the future might hold?  He had _known_ he preferred to be alone because of the way his father had isolated him, but he had also believed that the results were worth it; he _was_ talented, a genius in multiple fields, and others had proven repeatedly that working with them only slowed him down.  Intellectually, it was still true, with a few caveats to prove the rule of exception – his work was better completed alone, but the results improved exponentially if he remained part of a wider project that met periodically to assemble a larger whole.  Quatre had been the first to show it could be worthwhile, at _Libra_ , then the way the amplifier project was arranged had sealed it. 

            Outside of academics, though? 

            He didn’t think he was ever so at ease with himself as he was now, after three years of shared space and meddling with Shui – after one year of living as Kailì’s honorary son – and that was worth something.  He had been careful to segregate his work from his growing home life, for all that Kailí continually pushed the boundary, firm on that one point, but… 

            He looked back at his roommate’s ruined, _exhausted_ face, and frowned.  _Maybe… I’ve been making another mistake.  Maybe I’m still not doing enough._  

            Maybe it was time to take another step outside of his slowly expanding comfort zone, and see what _else_ he was capable of? 

            Shaking his head, Wufei settled on the floor to meditate. 

-

***

-

**Lecco, Italy**

            _“De Leon.”_  

            Yvette gusted out a sigh of relief at her superior’s voice, tense as it was – she was using a stranger’s phone, after all.  “Sorry I’m late, sir,” she apologized, leaning back against the side of the bed in her crap motel room.  “Things went rather pear-shaped, and, ah…  everything was a bit dicey for a spell, there.”  She ruffled a hand through her bangs.  “Corporal Holt, reporting in.” 

            Marsden let out a startled little laugh.  _“Well God damn, Yvette, you had me ‘bout tearing my hair out over here.  You’re okay?”_  

            She grimaced.  “Okay, mostly.  None too happy, but not terribly roughed up either.  Can’t say the same for my gear, or even my damn purse, though, so I’ve got no ID or badge in a country where I speak maybe ten sentences worth of the language, in the middle of a freaking civil war; but I’m not bleeding, and no one’s beating down the door.  I always keep a stash of mad money in my bra, so I managed to find a place to lay low, but… yeah, I’m none too fond of the idea of _either_ side finding me at the moment.” 

            She’d always thought feminism was ridiculous, and the fact that she could get away with batting her eyes and looking helpless so people dismissed her as harmless despite not having any papers was now Exhibit A for _why_.  Men her age stood out, these days – it was damn rare for them to _not_ belong to some form of military or other violent outfit, and as soon as she threw on a blouse and skirt, she became just another young widow looking for work or shelter.  Camouflage was _never_ to be underestimated, in her opinion, and that motto had always served her well in this line of work.  

            She’d still memorized the address of the house she’d broken into for clothes and other basic necessities because she wasn’t a _total_ dick; she had every intention of paying them back once she was back in the clear. 

            Contracting was still preferable to military work, in her book, but you had to roll with what the market gave you, and the Regime’s pressure on Romefeller had dried up most of the private security firms post-Fall.  That said, provided she didn’t get shot in the line of duty, she was pretty sure she was set up at this point to be private _royal_ security, and she was all for that.  Nothing had truly been made official yet, but she could read between the lines, and the Cajun lieutenant in charge of her division hadn’t made any effort to obfuscate or deny the direction things were going.  Yvette didn’t really know the Princess or her core players in the guard, but whoever was in charge ran a damn tight ship, and she was proud to now be a part of it formally, instead of a favorite in the resource pool. 

            Retainer for royalty was, quite frankly, a pipe dream sort of dream job.  _Entirely worth the military service time – even when it lands me behind enemy lines in a mini civil war._  

            Mars made an irritated noise.  _“Well, good news is, you won’t have to sit tight for too long.  I could probably go get you out now, but it’d be tricky.  Rate things are goin’, though, tomorrow night should be easy, depending on how far south you got.”_  

            She whistled lowly.  “That fast?  I’m probably fine through Wednesday, and I can figure ways to stretch it further, but I won’t argue with only three days on the run.  I didn’t even make it across the Adda before burrowing in.” 

            _“That fast,”_ Mars agreed, voice wry.  _“Blindsided everyone and their cousin’s damn dog, too; fur’s flying over it.  Keep this phone on; I’ll be in touch.”_  

            “Righto,” she agreed, disconnecting the line… and considering for a moment before shrugging and checking out what free games she could download onto the little burner. 

            There were worse ways to handle this kind of shit than waiting it out. 

-

***

-

**Amsterdam, Netherlands – Devil’s Den**

            “At this rate, I’m not sure how much longer ‘Liss is going to be with the Militia,” Adelheid mused, turning away from the doorway to check on the stove. 

            “She likes her patrol,” Anika argued in an absentminded way, dicing vegetables. 

            “She also likes her shop,” Gust pointed out in a dry tone, leaning against the doorframe, blatantly continuing the watch the couple quietly bickering on one of the couches.  “And teaching.  And her less legal patrol.  If she didn’t worry about it being seen as shady, she’s have left her khakis behind months ago.” 

            Adelheid made a face, nodding.  “She thinks that so long as she has that official rank to lean on as some sort of proof that she’s an upstanding citizen, it’ll keep more attention off the shop.” 

            Anika frowned, looking up.  “Is she right?” 

            “Not enough to matter, probably,” Gust dismissed, still not looking at them.  “Especially not now that the shop has a reputation and people are starting to wonder when the hell she sleeps.”  He snickered.  “Daron’s started muttering about her running off petrol and coffee.” 

            She’d heard that around the office, actually.  “It figures he’s the one who started that.”  Melissa’s Militia partner was kinda an ass, but thankfully, everyone was taking it more as a point of admiration than the bratty whining the man had meant it as.  “What do you think our chances of him accepting a transfer to a different sector are, if she does quit?” 

            “Eh…  it would depend, I guess.  If we could make it look appealing, probably?  I can think of a few boys from the smaller set who’d sign up in a heartbeat who wouldn’t be entirely hopeless, if they knew it would be our sector.”  He finally turned back to face her, pursing his lips.  “He likes his shift – how hard would it be for you to break it up into a bunch of little ones?  If there’s a spot with his favorite hours somewhere outside of Beale territory and he knew ‘Liss wasn’t willing to cover his ass anymore, he’d probably jump for it.  I mean, he might without any changing of the hours here too, but…”  He shrugged.  “It’d stack the deck a little.” 

            “Hmm…  I’d have to look into it.”  She was high up enough in administration that she probably could, but she wouldn’t if it looked like it could hurt system.  Using the power she’d earned was one thing – taking advantage in a way that would be detrimental to the Militia as a whole, though, that was an absolute _no_.  The organization had been a damn godsend, for all that it still didn’t cover all the gaps left behind after the Fall, and with how she’d risen in the ranks, the Amsterdam branch was practically her baby, now. 

            It wasn’t perfect, but it made a big difference. 

            Gust shrugged, turning back to the living room.  “Just a thought.  We’ll keep our sector safe enough whoever’s on official staff, but it would be nice to coordinate.  Especially if Kay and ‘Liss keep on like this.” 

            “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Anika admitted, coming over with a cutting board full of veggies ready for stew.  “Kay’s already set everything up here to be self-sustaining, and he doesn’t want to _take over_ anywhere else, so it’ll be the same.  So what if someone else reached out first?” 

            “It’s about motives, not the doing.  Amsterdam _knows_ Kay and how he works now, but between the business with the Fergusons and Rotterdam, outsiders are getting weird ideas.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Which was inevitable, because I swear, Kay is a _one of a kind_ – but that doesn’t make this not a mess.  We’re too hands off to be a syndicate – that’s more Cadence territory – but we don’t match anything else either, so we’ve been classed as one.  Kay’s proven he doesn’t take no for an answer even though he only asks for reasonable shit, and that he’s determined to see further south and east to keep Amsterdam safe – but instead of ‘paranoid neighbor who means well’ people are getting ‘power-grabbing crime lord’ vibes.  The tail end of what went down in Rotterdam made a lot of things easier because now everyone knows we carry weight and that it’s a bad idea to lean on us, but it also means they’re going to _expect_ certain things.  They’re looking for gaps in fronts that don’t _exist_ , and the only way to really handle that is to find the middle ground and _become_ what’s expected.  At least, a bit?  Backing down now would only cause more problems.” 

            “He shouldn’t back down anyway,” Adelheid reminded him, considering the stage her broth was at.  “We all agreed on that before he started trying to extend the network, and none of those reasons have gone away.”  Something like Chaos’ network could have prevented the riot last year, let alone all the good it had done on a local level since.  The easy way Kay had tracked down and handled the situation with the mayor’s daughters was clear evidence too, and with all the fighting starting up again they could find themselves in over their heads with no warning at all, if they didn’t extend. 

            Under Luc, they’d always been very isolationist, and honestly, they still _were_ , but...  _We can’t afford that anymore._   The world just kept getting bigger the more they got their feet under them, destroying any sense of peace they got as soon as they got settled in.  There was nothing to say they wouldn’t be thrown to the winds again, and if there was a chance they could be _ready_ for it this time…  That could mean everything. 

            Losing Luc and Leah had been devastating enough, and for all that they tried to keep to themselves, they _were_ responsible for a good chunk of the city now.  If there was even a _chance_ that they could prevent another nightmare like the riot, or one of the bombs that had struck the other major cities, she’d take it. 

            Honestly, though, she was with Anika on not understanding what Kay’s new problem was.  They’d sorted out steady agreements with the other Amsterdam groups last spring, and it had worked out rather well so far, at least with Cadence – and Tiger was more or less a branch of Cadence, after the riot.  They’d be idiots to expect much out of Beale or Shadow, but those two were generally too busy sniping at each other to bother anyone else – basically the same way the Devils and Slinger had, once upon a time.  The worst patrols were along the border to Shadow for a reason, and the assholes knew their bullshit wasn’t tolerated in the Devil’s sector, so they kept to themselves.  Tolerant apathy, though the more domestic end of Kay’s network was strung loosely through their area as well. 

            Most of the people Kay had talked to in Rotterdam had been amenable before the trouble went down, either seeing the advantage or being leery of the rumors about ‘the Dutchman’ after the Ferguson fiasco.  The only group in town that he hadn’t gotten to before the fight had agreed without meeting the Devils in person – though Adelheid wasn’t sure if it was because they had good relations to gangs who had already agreed, or just reactionary. 

            The ‘ambassador’ from the Hague that had shown up this morning, though – that was _definitely_ a result of Chaos’ alleyway curbstomp brawl. 

            _Wasn’t that half the point, though?_   In the end of the day, power responded to power, and Kay was hardly new to that idea, so why the fuss? 

            “Any way, we can fuss over motives later,” Adelheid decided dismissively.  “Everyone’s selfish about something – and we’re not asking for loyalty.”  That would be stupid.  “It’ll be easier for them to watch their own backs too if they cooperate – nothing to lose, so why not?” 

            “Because there might be something to gain if someone else is willing to show off their soft spots,” Gust argued.  “When Kay is instigating, he’s in a position of power; when they’re approaching _us_ , they’re taking the initiative and might be looking for weaknesses instead of allies.” 

            “Which means _what_ in a practical sense?”  Adelheid was exasperated now.  “We’ll deal with that if it becomes an issue.  Kay is in a league of his own, and we’ll back him.  Cadence would back him if he asked; probably without any hesitation!  And then he has all his old friends from the war willing to lend a hand if he asks too.”  He pointed at Gust daringly.  “This is just another male ‘I don’t want to ask for help’ thing!” 

            Gust snickered, gesturing back to the living room.  “Why do you think ‘Liss has been trying to talk him down for the past half hour?” 

            “Ugh, Melissa’s almost as bad as he is, the tomboy” Adelheid muttered disgustedly, picking up the veggies to start adding them to the stew.  “Someone should go find Sin.” 

            “Because _Sin_ has such a good record for asking for help when she needs it,” Anika drawled, trying not to laugh.  “Kay was the one who straightened Rina out, or did you forget?” 

            “Rina is aware that she _has_ limits, unlike those two,” Adelheid huffed. 

            Gust rolled his eyes.  “Just give it time; Kay’s almost through his latest meltdown, and then he’ll buck back up, like usual.”  He shook his head.  “The man’s moods are a God damn roller coaster – I think the issue is that this just went a lot faster than he expected.” 

            “He tends to freak out more the easier something is,” Anika agreed solemnly, heading into the pantry. 

            _Ain’t that the truth?_   “He’ll get over it.” 

            “Probably within the hour,” Gust agreed. 

            “I can hear you jackasses, you know,” Kay called in an annoyed tone. 

            Gust rolled his eyes again.  “And?”  Melissa started laughing. 

            “You all suck.” 

            “We love you, Chaos!” Anika called brightly from the pantry. 

            “I hate everything,” the younger man groused, pulling his knees up so he could bury his face in them and hide from his giggling wife. 

-

***

-

**November 4 th 198 – Monday – L4**

            Torie glowered at her phone, _willing_ herself to be misunderstanding this somehow.  That she’d missed a change in code, or that maybe Belle was pranking her. 

            …None of the Etheredge girls were into practical jokes, though.  And Belle had only grown more solemn since getting married and widowed in the same year – on top of everything else the war had done. 

            _Damn it._   She’d thought she had finally gotten far enough ahead of her workload to buy herself some breathing room, but according to the older woman’s email that was superficially a telling of her day, there had been two more skirmishes since Italy got up on its soapbox and at least four of the satellite relays for live communication between Treize’s fleet and Earth had gone dark.  She scowled at the screen, laying out maps mentally, before shaking her head.  She made it a point to not _actually_ know where the troops were located as a matter of both security and personal safety, but this seemed a little excessive. 

            Either Khushrenada had his people spread out all over the place, or something else was eating the signal of at least one relay.  She’d have to open up her network and double check exactly _which_ were nonresponsive, but at a glance, the numbers didn’t line up.  It could be due to an unrelated collision, or quality control failing on her…  But damn it all, she’d spent _so_ much time on this already – she’d thought her work would last a little longer! 

            _Nothing for it,_ she groused internally, shoulders slumping as she looked up at the timer on the dryer.  Sometimes, crap just happened – you made it work, and if she had to retrace her steps, she would.  Her ship was in the dry dock getting a full tune-up now, so she should be good to go for a couple weeks out of contact if it came down to it by tomorrow.  She could work _from_ just about anywhere for the commerce routes, for all that it was convenient to be close… 

            Though if she was going where she thought she was, it might be better to run dark.  Transfer over someone from the central pool and make Arthur the new hub boss – he’d done it before, and he was with her on the whole conspiracy end of things, so he’d help her cover her tracks.  See if Alondra or Daisuke were up to backing her so she’d have someone she trusted to tandem with… call Caralee in a few minutes and see if she could get her to pull a few plugs and raise a fuss so it looked like there was a legit problem to go work out… 

            “Wow.  You know, I kinda figured you were going to ghost me for another two years.” 

            Looking up, Torie absently tucked a stray curl behind one ear and smiled.  “I like my clothing collection too much to skitter off while I’m trapped in a laundromat,” she informed Todd breezily, hiding her nerves.  There were only a handful of other people in the business, and they were both calm, distracted with their phones or books, and mostly outside of her range – any moment now, Todd would break into her little bubble, and if she’d misjudged him, this could get really uncomfortable really fast. 

            Sometimes she envied Taylor’s need for a tactile interface.  Most of the time, just _no_ – because people changed from moment to moment but at least nothing _lingered_.  Poor Tay risked picking up _years_ worth of emotion the moment he touched something whose owner had been attached to it…  But at the same time, he could usually _control_ what he came in contact with. 

            Usually being the operative word, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?  Empathy was still rare enough that it wasn’t that well understood – the Claflinn family had easily held the highest known number of incidents of it since the phenomena was first recorded, and even with over fifty of them spread across three generations now, there were still less than ten empaths among them.  _Well, probably._   No one had heard from Makenna or her brood since 180, but personally, Torie figured if Lucie, Joyce, or any kids Makenna had on her own inherited it, they would have made contact.  Courtney said that both she and Tay had been showing signs of it before Quatre was born, and Camille had never been secretive about her extra sense – she’d become a freaking _psychiatrist_ because of it, though Torie had no idea _how_.  Jolene was still super involved in the community after raising three. 

            So, maybe twenty percent odds in what was left of the Claflinn line after Quaterine died, and closer to ten in the rest of the spaceborn population.  Most people who acknowledged it talked about evolution and called it a ‘gift’, but honestly?  If they were right, evolution fucking sucked.  Maybe there were advantages, but the pros didn’t even come close to outweighing the cons in her book, so she couldn’t think of it as anything less than a goddamn curse. 

            On the bright side though, Todd’s sheer _bounce_ wasn’t isolated to his step.  He _radiated_ warmth as he sauntered over and hopped onto the washer next to hers before holding up the two takeaway coffee cups he was carrying.  “White mocha, or cinnamon dolce?” 

            If she didn’t already know they shared the same taste in coffee she’d think he was buttering her up, offering two of her favorites like that.  Taking the cinnamon, she leaned back on one hand, marveling at how happily casual he was being.  “What were you going to do if you couldn’t find me?” 

            He shrugged.  “I saw a homeless guy a block or so back.  He didn’t look too crazy – he’d probably appreciate it, and maybe he had a couple interesting stories to tell.” 

            He was entirely _genuine_ too; that was the crazy part.  “Oh my god, how do you even _exist_?” she groaned, sighing happily as she sipped at her drink. 

            A flicker of internal motion – like rustling feathers, only made of silent laughter.  “Boy meets girl?”  Pleased warmth when she groaned, rolling her eyes, and a steady increase in… clarity?  “That or I spawned from the ether of space, I’m not really sure – the orphanage didn’t keep very good records.” 

            She bent forward, giggling, because _wow_ , really?  But again, he was just… there, without anything slinking underneath. 

            Just… _effervescent_. 

            _That might just be addicting._   It felt _good_ , all bright and light as a feather… and he was _absolutely_ flirting now, she could _feel_ it.  Unlike most girls, she’d never have to worry about what a man was thinking, what he really wanted from her – but she’d also never really thought one might have such immediate _appeal_ either. 

            It was a damn shame she had to run first thing in the morning, when she knew he had a couple days leave to spend how he liked.  Not that she couldn’t catch him again, and actually _try_ this time instead of getting all passive aggressive with her _own_ emotions let alone anyone else’s, but…  _Lame._  

            _Oh well._   She’d figure out a way to make up for it.  “You’re free for dinner, right?” 

-

***

-

**Istanbul, Turkey**

            Tay shrugged.  “Well, I’ve got nothing.  Where to next?” 

            “Well, since Amsterdam was a hit, I thought we’d aim back towards that end of Europe,” Priya admitted, fiddling with her tablet.  “Berlin, maybe?  There’s a flight there with a two-hour layover in Budapest, so we can knock that off the list too, I guess.  It leaves in forty minutes, but we can make it.” 

            “That sounds like as good of a plan as any,” he agreed, turning his head to watch some sort of band walk by, based on the luggage.  “It’s a shot in the dark, but we have to start somewhere.  Forward me the confirmation once you’ve got it?” 

            “Mm hmm.”  Focusing on her screen again, she absentmindedly asked, “Are you hungry?  The they don’t have any first class left, so no in flight meal.” 

            “Not really, but a few snacks are probably a good idea,” Taylor decided, pulling out his gloves; touching Priya’s things usually gave him a pleasant sort of feedback loop, but if he was going shopping, that was another matter entirely.  “Any requests?” 

            She made a face and flapped a hand at him.  “You know my tastes – be generous, incase we end up chasing something as soon as we land.  I’ll meet you at the terminal.” 

            The first shop didn’t have the licorice he preferred, so after picking up some more generic junk food he ended up hitting a second one to check before giving it up as a bad job and heading to the gate.  Between the lines and a last second decision to hit the bathroom to avoid dealing with the one on the plane he ended up walking up after they’d already started boarding, and he honestly expected an exasperated comment from Priya while she stood waiting impatiently.  Instead, however, she was still sitting, tapping furiously at her screen again with a deep frown. 

            That wasn’t like her.  “Is everything okay?” 

            “I got a flag,” she muttered without looking up.  “Sale of the shares in a small shipping company, nothing too big, and maybe a coincidence, but…” 

            “Oh.”  He glanced back at the boarding line and shrugged.  “We should still get on the plane though, don’t you think?  We can decide if we’re heading a different way from Budapest.” 

            “I won’t have a net connection on the plane,” she complained.  “This model doesn’t offer it.  I’m not even sure why I got this.  Lowe is a common surname, but I put the flag down for _Odin Lowe_ , and if I’d messed that bot up, then I’d have gotten a _lot_ of false flags already by now, and-”  She let out a frustrated noise.  “Damn it, I can’t do this through the local firewalls-” 

            Taylor rolled his eyes and plucked at the sleeve of her shirt – one of her favorites – and he soaked in the happiness at that even as he shook his head.  The way she focused and over obsessed on all her belongings, but especially her clothes, always made Priya one of his favorite traveling companions – if she didn’t adore something, she didn’t own it in the first place.  “You can sort it out once we’re a little further northwest,” he coaxed, sinking into the cloth’s emotions until he felt like nothing could go wrong.  It was a different peace than he got from his mom’s knitting – more energetic, but just as good.  “Come on.” 

            “Or we’ll find out he’s in Egypt again and we just lost him,” she half growled, turning green eyes up to glower at him.” 

            “Yeah, except if you can get anything resembling a real location on either of them, that’s what I’m here for,” he reminded her calmly.  “Get me in the room where either Quatre or his friend were, and I can find something to pick up an impression from.  I thought that was the whole point of bringing me in in the first place; my trails don’t go cold anywhere near as fast.” 

            Also, it was _just_ warm enough here that he was getting odd looks for his gloves – they could come back if they needed to, but he’d just as soon get further north. 

            “You even said it might not be anything,” he wheedled when she opened her mouth to argue.  “Stop brooding and just get on the damn plane already.” 

            She let out a gusty sigh and stood.  “Bossy.” 

            “Sure, let’s go with that.”  He wrinkled his nose and picked at her sleeve again, letting that ground him through his rising irritation at her being ridiculous.  Airports were always tired and stressed, and it was hard to not go with that flow if he didn’t have something else to focus on. 

            It was cheating, but hey, if he had to live with empathy, he might as well enjoy the perks.  Priya was just stressed – there was no reason to hold her mood against her when it was justified like this.  She’d been on the case long enough that she was probably warranted a bit of the defeatist attitude.  So long as it didn’t linger long enough to start sticking, he didn’t really mind. 

            “Did you get chocolate?” she asked tiredly as they shuffled into line. 

            “Just who do you take me for?” he demanded happily.  “Nothing dark, but still – Felicity’s.”  He didn’t really know the Earth brands too well, and a lot of them had taken a hit they couldn’t really recover from after the Fall anyway, both with the changing economy and the sharp drop in supply.  Felicity’s was getting to be standard, now, and he couldn’t argue with that – he’d always preferred them anyway. 

            Also, he was biased – Hollee had always let them test new products before she put them into mainstream, growing up. 

            “Ooh, yes,” Priya crowed, eyes lighting up as she reached for the bag. 

            He snorted and raised it up over her head, out of reach.  “Wait until we’re in our seats, geeze.  Where did you even put our tickets?  You’re a little high strung today, calm down.” 

            She narrowed her eyes at him and held out a hand imperiously.  “I am woman – give me chocolate or face my wrath.” 

            He rolled his eyes again, jiggling the bag over her head for emphasis.  “Tickets, woman; I keep a barter system.” 

            She rolled her eyes right back at him… but at least she started digging out the boarding passes. 

-

***

-

**Brussels, Belgium**

            “So long as you’re there to authorize and babysit the movers when they get here, I don’t really care how you manage it,” Kelly decided, cutting off Sandra’s dithering.  “I’ve got too much shit to do to hold you hand, here.  Captain Derusha takes possession in another hour, and barring inspection uncovering a disaster, I need to get everything off the ground by Thursday.  _Everything_ , Sandra.  Save the whining for someone who has _time_.” 

            The other woman groaned, and Kelly could practically _see_ her roll her eyes through the line.  _“I expect back-up if I get complaints filed against me; and I’m not dealing with Sabetta.”_  

            “Done, easy,” she agreed immediately.  “Bye.” 

            _“I’ll text updates.”_   _Click._  

            She smirked as her phone returned to its home screen and opened up her contacts for the next number she needed.  Sandra was great, so long as she wasn’t freaking out over social situations.  Confidence issues or something – Kelly had never bothered to sort out the details – but there were good reasons she’d pulled the woman for the new Foreign Affairs Department almost immediately after her own recruitment.  If you gave her carte blanche to steamroll through awkward crap, anyone trying to pen her in might as well try standing in the way of a damn tornado. 

            Some people just couldn’t click off the safeties themselves, she supposed.  Handing off control like that seemed counterintuitive to her, but people would be people, or something.  Working with Relena again was going to be _fun_. 

            Still no word from Valerie about housing yet, but it was still early in the day, so she wasn’t too surprised.  Addie had texted wanting a confirmation of their numbers for… food.  _Oh, good._   She sent back a confirmation and made sure she had Val’s information so they’d stay on page with each other; didn’t want that to get out of order and buy food before they had kitchens to stock.  Jerome had said they had crews ready to follow inspection for any remodeling and they’d know by the time he was awake tonight if the Thursday deadline had any basis of reality, but said that she could assure their people that they would be getting paid whether or not everything was ready to start, and to get them settled in. 

            Well, she’d known the move was coming for a handful of weeks, so she’d been able to more or less pack up her apartment beyond the bare necessities, but she’d only been able to start touching on her office yesterday.  She’d probably have time to at least make a dent in that if not wrap it up entirely before Mary Jean Sabetta came tearing in demanding answers; the high-handed bitch was possessive of all the offices and could mostly get away with it after all the time she’d spent as Peacecraft’s favorite clerk. 

            Free reign to tweak Mary Jean’s nose was certainly a perk of taking up the job Relena offered.  And maybe it was petty – who was she kidding, it was _absolutely petty_ – but she was just… going to savor that, a bit.  _Karma’s a bitch, bitch._   Just because Princess Relena was too nice to revel in a little payback didn’t mean anyone else had to take that shit lying down. 

            Unlocking her office door, she started her next call. 

            _“Hello?”_  

            “Jillian, hey,” she began cheerfully.  “I just wanted to check in, see if there was anything you needed.” 

            The happy squealing of a young child came through the line as Jillian sighed.  _“No, it’s-  Thank-you, Daniel, that’s perfect.  Sorry, Kelly, I’m good.  It’s a little hectic, but we’re mostly on track.”_   In a quieter tone that suggested she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth, she added, _“The Hawaiian one!  If you put her in front of that she turns into a tiny zombie; she already has her crackers, and then we can finish the bedrooms.”_   Louder again, she admitted, _“Cam talked a couple of his school friends into helping since it’s an administrative day, so I’ve got this.”_   She let out a little laugh.  _“I think I’m being extorted for cookies, but if they keep this up, they’re getting **brownies**.”_  

            _“Your mom **bakes**?”_ an excited voice demanded. 

            _“I was only going to guilt you into it if they didn’t screw up, Mom,”_ Jillian’s ten-year-old complained.  _“Now you’re stuck.”_  

            _“Bribery is traditional when friends help you move, Cameron,”_ the woman informed her son primly.  _“I don’t think I’m out of line for replacing the traditional beer and pizza with baked goods.”_  

            _Well, it sounds like they have things well in hand._   “Call me if something comes up,” she insisted.  “Otherwise, I’ll let you know once we have more details about housing.” 

            Jillian laughed.  _“Don’t overdose on caffeine, Kelly.”_  

            “No promises,” she returned mock seriously – or maybe not mock, depending on how the day went.  “Talk to you later.”  She disconnected the line and considered for a moment before making a face and writing the other woman’s name down on a stray piece of paper she’d left on her desk.  _One down…  only thirty-eight other families to check on.  Maybe I’ll get through fifteen before my rendezvous with Sabetta._  

            Goals were important, right?  If it came down to it, most of her office crap could be tossed in boxes labeled ‘desk’, ‘bookcase’, or ‘wtf is this doing here’. 

            …Depending on how fantastically things went with Sabetta, she might be stealing her filing cabinet.  That, or she needed to go find some boxes for files, but either way, really, she wasn’t feeling too picky. 

-

***

-

**Earth Orbit – Sweepers Ship**

            “Well, kid, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Howard announced with a grin as they came in through the airlock.  “Heard through the grape vine that you’d been turning up, but I gotta say, a man lets you live on his ship for a month, least you could’ve done was say _hi_ , you know.” 

            Adam gave the older man a skeptical look.  “Hi.” 

            The old engineer barked out a sharp laugh, grinning even wider.  “You look like you’ve been doing okay, at least.  To hear Lu tell it, you’ve been just about everywhere in the past three years.” 

            “That isn’t a bad description,” Adam decided, smiling a little in return as they moved closer.  “I’ve followed where my feet led me – and my heart.  Making ties seemed like a mistake, for a while.” 

            “Well, can’t really argue with that,” Howard agreed.  “Never really lost my taste for walking the world and seeing where it took me.  Still, when you get old, eventually you find people to worry about.  Don’t suppose you stumbled by Duo at any point?  Never much cared for that Chinese little shit, but I had half a mind to write Maxwell into my will before the Fall fucked everything over.” 

            Odin carefully didn’t react to that, turning to make sure Yasa wasn’t trailing too far behind like he had no interest in the conversation.  The older man hadn’t said anything about Duo the last time he’d seen him, when they stayed for a day before dropping to South America, but… 

            Well, he wouldn’t have said anything even if he’d been asked – not without checking with his friend first.  On that note, he’d known that Howard was closer with the other pilot than the rest of them, but he hadn’t thought it was… maybe like that? 

            Adam blinked at him a few times before shrugging.  “He’s fine.  Not, ah…  He’s antisocial, but fine.  Happy; settled, even.” 

            The man’s smile became a little less manic, but no less wide.  “Good to hear.”  Tipping his head forward, he peered over his sunglasses at Yasa, eyes curious.  “You been picking up this one’s bad habits and adopting too?” 

            “Hey, I’m one of the _General’s_ strays, thank you very much,” Yasa announced with a smirk.  “Or Rashid’s, maybe.  This lot’s just fun to hang out with.” 

            Howard’s look was skeptical.  “And you’re how old, kid?” 

            Yasa rolled his eyes.  “Twelve.  I’m starting to feel like I should pack around my freaking birth certificate, man.” 

            He made a face, shaking his head.  “Eh…  I believe you.  Lu mentioned a third was coming, so she knew, and…  Eh, I guess I can stomach twelve.” 

            “I’m pretty sure I was killing for money by the time I was nine,” Adam offered, looking towards the ceiling instead of meeting anyone’s eyes. 

            …Odin wasn’t sure if this was a conversation he _should_ participate in, but he kinda… wanted to?  _Why not._   “I _stopped_ killing for money when I was nine.” 

            “And _this_ is why I supported a violent revolution in the first place,” Howard announced loudly.  “Child soldiers – fuck, but the teenagers are bad enough.” 

            “Holy shit… you’re serious,” Yasa exclaimed, eyes wide. 

            Odin shrugged a little.  “If it means anything, I didn’t really _know_ what I was doing until I was maybe eight, and even then, I didn’t understand.  I was good at it, but…  that’s something I promised myself I wouldn’t let happen to anyone again, if I could help it.” 

            His father had been everything to him, and he _knew_ Odin had loved him…  But after the war, after seeing how talented and _still innocent_ Marie could be?  It was hard to not be bitter about never having had a choice. 

            He had no idea when he’d learned to shoot, beyond the fact that he was mostly sure he’d been less than five.  He didn’t remember going on a job with Odin ever being new or strange; it had always just _been that way_.  He could remember the details of probably three years worth of missions with crystal clarity – the set-up, the equipment, the different places they’d been.  There was more – a _lot_ more – that was fuzzier, or were things he remembered seeing Odin do that he didn’t really care about; suggesting that it extended pretty far into the gaps in his memory too. 

            Despite his determination to move on, some days he was _still_ haunted by the innocents who had died because of his actions, but at least they had been accidents.  When he’d first joined Operation Meteor, he’d done his own research; he’d _known_ who his targets were and agreed that they needed to be removed from power.  

            His father had never told him anything about their marks beyond location and identifiable characteristics.  He’d never thought twice about it as a child, but now?  _No._   He couldn’t _imagine_ why Odin had thought there was nothing wrong with that.  The retraining was a haze, and he had no idea what he might have done under their control, trying to escape the next punishment, but…  When he had heard what Operation Meteor was really _supposed_ to be, when Dr. J had laid out his options?  Following through with the original mission parameters had never been acceptable. 

            It had been hard to remember how to really _think_ back then, to plan his own consequences…  If Dr. J hadn’t offered to command him on an alternate course, he probably would have wrapped up their conversation with a murder suicide just for lack of ideas. 

            But the way the old man had spoken that day…  He’d been so much more like the J he remembered recruiting him, instead of the brutal officer he’d known for the past year.  He’d _felt_ something again, that day. 

            Maybe it had been some old remnant of pride, that had made him decide he’d just… see how much it took to die in the line of duty, instead of being efficient.  As disappointed as he’d felt every time he woke up again those first months on Earth, he’d been proud too.  The things he’d been able to _get away with_ just kept stacking up, and winding up Duo had been entertaining enough to keep pushing the envelope over domestic issues too.  Then distractions kept spiking his interest, and after so many miscalculations for so many months that _should_ have been the end? 

            Well, he’d gotten curious.  He’d stopped thinking about the training and tried to ‘follow his emotions’ – as confusing as it started off – and by the time _Libra_ fell, he felt like he’d gotten the hang of more than just professional pride and doing what other people thought he should. 

            He would never be anyone’s tool again.  Marie would _never_ be someone’s tool to use and discard, the way he had been for the Barton Foundation – she’d make her own decisions. 

            Maybe she’d be spared the crushing regret that had killed his father – that he’d _tried so hard_ to die from himself. 

            “So how old were you when you first-” 

            “I don’t know,” Odin interrupted.  “I was too young to remember.”  _I think._  

            Plenty of people couldn’t pick out early memories – maybe the gaps were just that, and the way that Odin had never landmarked anything about time beyond the weather just confused the timeline too much for him to sort out.  The way they had lived, he could rearrange events in almost any order and have them still make sense.

            “ _Fuck_ ,” Yasa breathed, turning away. 

            He shrugged.  “It… didn’t stand out.  My father was a hit man; it was just what we did.” 

            “The sad thing is, it’s not actually the first time I’ve heard that fucking story,” Howard groused, one hand over his face.  “Almost word for fucking word, too, out of assassination when he was nine and into someone’s special ops.  Makes me wonder just how many of those were running around.   _Christ._ ” 

            Adam shrugged.  “From what I remember, I was with a mercenary troupe.  Almost all MS, only…”  He furrowed his brow, thinking.  “Always on the edge?  Our shit was always more broken than anything – I think they kept me on because I was good at fixing things, and small enough to crawl halfway into the joints to work on wiring.  When I started getting taller, they let me fiddle around in the cockpits too, instead of just cooking and fixing.” 

            Odin tipped his head.  “You remember that much?” 

            Adam grimaced.  “Not really – it’s mostly guesswork.  There’s a lot of random details that don’t really make sense in any other scenario I can come up with, though.  I have a lot more memories of when I was little than the war; the doctor said it’s hard to say if that’s because there’s just more time to draw things from, or if the more recent memories took a harder hit.  The general theory is that the location of memories are organized by time, with sequences of events clustering together, but it’s more accurate to say it’s by association – most people just use time to tie their lives together.”  He shrugged.  “Either way, it’s always going to be fractured.  There’s a reason I stopped trying.” 

            And that was solid Trowa thought processing right there, researched and gone about pragmatically, so Odin didn’t really see a problem.  The more time he spent with Adam, the more comfortable he was around him again…  The Trowa on _Peacemillion_ had been trying too hard to be something everyone told him about instead of _himself_ , and that, more than anything, was what had put him off about the other man. 

            Adam was different from Trowa the same ways that he supposed he now was from Heero.  Not so much someone new, but _more_.  Adam was still Trowa, and he was still Heero. 

            The old names had just stopped being… adequate. 

            Yasa turned to Howard.  “You know…  this almost makes me feel better?  I mean, I thought I’d been through some crazy shit, but there’s always a bigger fish, huh?” 

            The old engineer sighed.  “Something like that.  I need a drink – we’ve got another six hours before we’re at a good place to drop you back through atmo and conserve the most fuel, incase you run into trouble.”  He started walking away, clearly expecting them to follow.  “I’ve got the weather for the next two weeks pulled up too, but I’ll keep you up to date on changes the same as last time.”

-

***

-

**Munich, Germany – Sarracenia**

            “Hell no.  Even if it weren’t for the political tap dance I’m weaving my way through, my house is currently full of construction crews who weren’t expecting us home for another eighteen days.  If I’d had any delusions about retirement making my life easier, the past few days would have put them down hard.”  He stopped by the window, looking out at the grounds.  “You say it like I haven’t done it before.  I’ve actually _lost count_ of how many times I’ve dropped one career to pick up another now; I don’t sit still very well.  Three years is something of a record.”  He tipped his head to one side, smirking.  “Besides, it’s all syntax – the only thing that’s changing is my focus.” 

            Relena didn’t look up from her paperwork, but her smile was very self-satisfied, and Lin supposed she had the right to that.  It wasn’t like it hadn’t before, but now Jake’s world officially revolved around her on a _personal_ level, and the two of them were certainly basking in it. 

            For his part, Lin was just glad Jake managed to get the new shoji screens installed in their bedroom before all this bullshit with Italy started and they’d had to head home instead of touring.  They were at least _trying_ to be courteous about it all, but the couple was nonetheless still deep in their honeymooning phase, and the fact that the contractors had already started gutting the second floor to make the layout changes they’d finalized last Wednesday meant that sleeping arrangements were already awkward.  He and Mai had crashed in Jake’s old Murphy bed last night – since their rooms were gone as of yesterday and night shift had claimed the solarium while Leia was in Dorothy’s set-up on the third floor – and it hadn’t been bad, really…  

            …but he also could have done without hearing his former CO’s utterly _wrecked_ gasp this morning when he was going into the bathroom.  In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t too bad, but he’d still made a point to take a longer shower than usual and left the fan on for white noise before he hustled out of the suite to make sure everything was ready for the day.  All of Jake’s old crack of dawn duties were now _his_ purview, and while most of it ran smoothly without intervention, he wasn’t familiar enough with the fine details to just glance in and out yet. 

            Mai had either slept through the whole thing or done a decent job pretending at it, since she was keeping to swing shift – he actually hadn’t realized she was claiming the other half of his bed until he’d heard the door open last night and she’d dropped down next to him without any explanation.  Not that he’d been awake enough to give a damn, and not that he actually cared _now_ either, but before, her sleeping on him had been relegated to long car trips or drunken shenanigans. 

            The woman was a _cuddly_ drunk – especially after she’d ditched whoever she’d fucked into oblivion and made her way back to Sarracenia. 

            And, well, she was his best friend.  He’d only had to drop her ass in the shower once before she took the hint and stopped trying to crawl into his bed still reeking of sex – because hell, he had to draw the line _somewhere_ – and it obviously meant something to her, and it didn’t bother him, so why not?  He couldn’t really imagine not sleeping next to someone after spending the night with them, but he also didn’t get the appeal of one night stands, so he figured it was some sort of compromise. 

            They’d have to revisit the whole situation if he got a girlfriend, but his life was too complicated right now for him to have any interest in looking. 

            Jake scoffed.  “Change the subject, Dave; only warning.” 

            Relena bit her lip, smile twisting into a smirk. 

            _And I **really** should have expected that.  Jake takes prude to a whole new level, and Relena…_   He’d seen a few too many blushing, giggling, whispered conversations with suspect gestures between Lena and the other women in the house over the past few days, and he knew all too well that Mai was perfectly happy to try sharing locker room talk – with a kind of terrifying detail mixed with advice that she insisted was normal when girls did that shit. 

            At the same time, though, it was _weird_ how he got the distinct impression that it was the _soldier_ being debauched, not the princess. 

            “Tonight.  I’m told projections have the conflict over before nightfall, but even if it isn’t, it’s still in the final stages, not spreading.  Closing transportation to southern Italy was excessive once it was confirmed none of their suits could fly and commercial flights are still going to take a few days to get their authorization back, but I got him set up him as a ride-along with the pilot for a military flight to Rome this evening.  He’ll be home before midnight.” 

            And they’d all certainly breathe a sigh of relief at that; Des was a _mess_ right now with the whole Italy thing.  Lin _got_ it, even if he hadn’t had family in a long time, but that didn’t make dealing with the man when he was two inches away from meltdown any less aggravating.  At least he’d warmed up to Leia after everyone got their facts straight – apparently she and Lucrezia Noin had been pretty close before the war, so they’d already heard plenty about each other that they liked secondhand.  That, and Leia was separated from her daughter far more severely than Des was from Cassie and his youngest, which maybe helped put the situation into perspective. 

            Or, you know, they just bonded more over the fact that they were similarly separated from their daughters for more or less the same reason, and Des was coping better via commiseration.  Either way, the rather high-strung man was much closer to his normal self when Leia was in the room at the same time. 

            “Right?  I’m not sure what to think; I knew he had something up his sleeve, but I don’t think anyone was expecting this level of competence.  Hopefully it shines well on us more than it burns.” 

            Lin somehow kept feeling like that lunch in Switzerland had been both, like, two minutes ago, and an entire lifetime.  Before leaving for the masquerade, he’d thought he’d have time to rework his interactions with Jake before the next crisis; but instead he’d been caught flat-footed.  He’d shrugged into the commander’s coat easily enough though, and the trip back to Munich had been spent strategizing, debating tactics.  By the time they’d gotten home, he’d been ready to put his nose to the grind and haul ass for as long as it took… only to have it be _over_ as suddenly as it had started.  He hadn’t been attached to his room, and he was excited for the new layout they’d laid out in Switzerland, but that didn’t change the fact that he was suddenly home yet had both no personal space _and_ entirely new social rules to figure out. 

            None of that was _bad_ , exactly, he was usually cool to just roll with the punches, but… it was disorienting.  Every time he felt like he was back on firm ground, it all started spinning again.  It was annoying. 

            And in the middle of that chaos, the gradual transition of roles they had planned for the tour had been thrown out of the window while Jake openly finagled details Lin had always thought magically handled themselves with a level of polish fit for _Treize_. 

            Fuck, but he was starting to realize they’d gotten the drop on the man purely by virtue of him being severely depressed.  Maybe Relena had a natural knack for subterfuge, but he’d been reminded this weekend just how _much_ of the princess’ prowess had been learned from Miller – and how many steps back he’d taken to give her the reigns as soon as she’d shown any inclination for autonomy.  At this point, he was starting to debate just how many of the little political coups they had pinned entirely on Relena had relied on her drawing attention while Colonel _Batman_ moved backstage.  It wasn’t until now, when they were _seeing_ the process he used to filter intel and tease apart clues that they were getting a hint of how much detail he’d left out and handled alone. 

            _Depressed and **overloaded**._   They needed to sort out some sort of organization to take some of the sociopolitical workload of their faction back off the man, because Lin suspected that might be the reason he’d started to buckle under the weight of depression in the first place.  Jake had been intimidating as a concept just when they thought him a high class spy; recognizing the sheer number of balls the other man kept in the air as a matter of course to maintain RLTT was alarming as hell.  The rest of them had been scrambling for time to sleep just keeping Relena’s rising faction on its feet, and he was just _one_ man. 

            Lin literally couldn’t _comprehend_ how the colonel coped with it all at this point – though he had the uncomfortable feeling he was about to start one hell of a crash course. 

            It was just as well that he’d admitted to essentially being Treize’s favorite baby cousin, or little brother or whatever, because Khushrenada was probably the only one he’d ever heard of who could pull off the same kind of mental acrobatics and still have time for tea in the freaking afternoon.  Plots within plots and layers of deception and misdirection to hide the core of a man’s motives… and that was before even considering the physical shit. 

            “No, I stopped doing any major digging there after they revoked my official programmer’s access last year,” Jake admitted, shifting his stance to thoughtfully cup the elbow of the arm holding the phone, all fluid poise that Lin was used to only seeing in nobles.  “These days, I have Hayden pull anything relevant for us.  Why?” 

            He’d seen plenty of different types of body language from his CO over the year that he’d known him, but the closest he’d ever come to carelessly elegant like this was the dangerous jungle cat prowl that came out when fighting or trying to intimidate.  If he hadn’t spent so much time with him and _never seen any of it before_ , Lin would think that the minute shifts in weight as he considered something, the small gestures and posture were the result of a privileged upbringing the man couldn’t shake even if he wanted to.  It wasn’t entirely foreign – he was still the same _person_ , the same body – but combined with everything else? 

            Since he’d met him, Jake had always lived out of either his uniform or baggy jeans and t-shirts; always either the precise military man, or the slouching computer nerd you’d dismiss at a glance.  _On the job, or off._   Since coming home, though, neither had shown up.  Instead the wardrobe had shifted into something to match Relena.  Neat slacks and insanely expensive, fitted shirts casually rolled up past the elbow, with understated but clearly expensive jewelry to match that old money stance. 

            The only things left from before were the plain black bands on one wrist and the fact that despite the neat lines of the new clothes?  They were still loose enough in the right ways to hide a fucking armory. 

            Intellectually, he knew his friend well enough to recognize that each aspect was just a facet of himself he emphasized to the exclusion of the rest to get shit done, not a lie – but that didn’t make it _not_ eerie enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck.  He knew better, but some animal instinct in him was rearing up and making him want to doubt, now that the other man had stopped layering plausible smokescreens over just how good a spook he was. 

            And Relena, of course, had seen it months and months ago, smiling mischievously and insisting he was ‘casually chameleon’.  He’d agreed, he’d already _known_ … but evidently, seeing wasn’t the same as believing, and it was going to take a little time to get used to. 

            Since the original plan had been to spend the next three weeks in the public eye, they’d intended to transition Jake’s role gradually, but, well…  Italy.  And since the billionaire had decided they weren’t part of the crowd he had to play his charade for anymore, he’d stopped bothering with subtlety. 

            Coming from him, it was probably a compliment…  But it was still jarring as fuck. 

            There was something relieving about how Jake’s disbelieving little cackle was the same, at least.  “What?  No, are you kidding me?  They _hate_ me.  I don’t think they’d tell me if I was standing in a burning building.”  A smirk.  “Well, that’s because they’re stupid.” 

            Then, an absolutely _delighted_ grin that directly clashed with his suddenly somber voice.  “Oh shit, seriously?” 

            Relena looked up sharply at the shift in tone, then raised a brow when he actually bit his lip to stop himself from laughing as he waved a hand at her, eyes bright.  “Fuck,” he continued in a tone bordering between worried and pissed, then vindictive.  “Think I should call them up and give a big damn ‘I told you so’?  Do they have any idea how long it’s been there?” 

            Cassidy tapped Relena with an elbow so she turned to him met and blandly announced, “This shit is disturbing.” 

            _God, but I missed you, man._   The American’s exceedingly dry sense of humor was a _riot_ , and it had taken him all of two hours to realize the running game he and Mai kept up suggesting that she was coming up with all their ideas while he tried to keep her in check.  But in typical Kansas fashion, he’d just settled in to watch the show instead of spoiling it. 

            “Ah, crap, I have to take care of this,” Jake announced in a frustrated voice, face a damn rictus as Relena started trying to smother a laugh.  “I’ll catch you later.”  As soon as he’d hung up, he started laughing hard, bending over to hide his face. 

            Well, that, at least, was every bit the rough and tumble colonel from before, not the new nobleman. 

            “Oh, this looks promising,” Mai decided as she came back in.  “What did I miss?” 

            “I’d really love to know myself,” Lin admitted, setting down the tablet he’d been coordinating on and crossing his arms.  “Either he was bullshitting Mitchell, or they’re both busy bullshitting someone else.”  He was pretty sure it was one of the two, at least. 

            “Ooh,” she cooed, dropping onto the couch next to him.  “My favorite.  Is he going to tell us, or should we work up conspiracies?” 

            Jake snorted, leaning back against the built in desk.  “ _Years_ ,” he crowed.  “It’s been…  Shit, it’s been almost _three years_ , I can’t believe it.” 

            “I’ll put money on it being both of them,” Cassidy decided. 

            _Yeah, me too._   “Sucker’s bet,” Lin argued.  “Who do we know who openly wants this asshole to go die in a fire but still talks to Dave?”  Most people either respected Miller or had no idea who the hell he was.  He usually didn’t stay in one role long enough to _get_ a reputation. 

            Jake laughed harder, bracing himself back on his hands and tipping his head back.  “IT.” 

            Lin frowned.  “Like… Information Tech?”  At his nod, he considered.  “Who did you piss off in IT?” 

            His laughter turned naughty.  “Dave called it the ‘Reign of Terror.’” 

            _Right, he was originally assigned to building the network, before they switched him over to pilot hunting,_ Lin realized.  And, well…  Jake could be a real hardass with insane standards – when he got on a roll, it tended to turn lesser beings either all starry eyed or running for the hills. 

            Cassidy, evidently, was thinking along the same lines.  “They didn’t want to shape up?” 

            “Oh, I wasn’t in command,” Jake drawled.  “Zechs tried, but I made him realize tying me down in tech was stupid; he wouldn’t want me to form the foundation of something of something I would ditch anyway six months later.  He’d have to restructure everything to make up the difference after he moved me to something more critical.” 

            “Except that’s, you know, what you _do_ ,” Cassidy drawled right back.  “Build shit up nice and ride off into the sunset.” 

            His grin widened.  “He… might be under the impression that I’m a chaotic loner that gets bored easily and changes careers at the drop of a hat.” 

            _Instead of a workaholic jack-of-all-trades with a compulsive need for secrecy._   If he didn’t _know_ the guy, he guessed he could see why someone might believe it.  _Still._   “ _How_ , exactly, is it that he thinks he knows you, again?” 

            “Lu asked me to play nice; after that, he decided he knew everything about me and stopped trying.  It was funny, and then I got busy and didn’t see him too often.” 

            Relena groaned, dropping her face into her hands.  “I can’t believe I thought the two of you were _close_.” 

            “ _He_ thinks we are, which works well enough as camouflage.”  Jake shrugged.  “Before Sanc fell, I thought he’d work it out eventually and I’d get to tease him about it for years.  I mean, Lu was set to marry him, so I figured we’d have the time to sort it out.  That, or, you know, he’d die and I wouldn’t have to give him a shovel talk.”  He grimaced.  “When he showed up on _Libra_ , I thought might be there to sabotage it – maybe a balls out version of the mask gambit he pulled in OZ, but…  Yeah.  Treize said he didn’t know anymore, and Lu was five steps past biased _but still concerned_ , and it seemed like a better idea to stay in reserve until I knew which way the wind was blowing…  And when I couldn’t get a solid read on anything in the middle of crunch time, I took the wrong leap of faith because I _wanted_ Lu to be right.” 

            He swallowed, all trace of joy gone from him.  “And, you know.  Be willing to ever talk to me again.” 

            _Because Dorothy and Relena proved that there was no stopping Peacecraft by that point with anything short of death._   And no one had _really_ believed anyone was willing to actually try to kill the planet until it was done.  It was just too… insane.  Some sort of bluff.  And maybe it had been, because only half the planet was in ruins instead of the whole thing, but how do you explain to a woman who sees you as a brother that you killed her lover because you thought he _might_ be willing to do the unthinkable? 

            Jake licked his lips, eyes down.  “Should’ve anyway, come to find out, but…  I didn’t _know,_ and he’s _always_ been able to run a damn good con… and he was supposed to be family.  I didn’t like him, but I didn’t know him that well either, and… he loved Lu.  I thought, if he loved Lu, there was no way he could do something that would kill Des.  If nothing else, I thought…” 

            He closed his eyes, pinching his lips together tight for a long moment before puffing out a sigh.  “Right, I’m not doing this right now.  I made the wrong call, Zechs came to his senses after he saw what no one was able to completely prevent, and Treize asked me to do better this time.” 

            _Holy **fuck** , but I hope he didn’t say it like that._ 

            “Jake-” Relena started, standing. 

            “I know it’s not my fault,” he agreed, making a sharp gesture.  “I’m not that bad.”  He wrapped his arms around the princess’ waist, pressing his nose to her hair.  “Doesn’t mean I don’t feel shitty about not doing _something_ , but when it comes to limiting the damage to the Americas the only ones who got much of anything done at all were the gundams – so that’s something _everyone_ gets to feel shitty about.  I’m only human: I’m going to fuck up sometimes, and I’ve got enough regrets without borrowing someone else’s crimes.” 

            He pulled away from Relena a little, smiling at her, before facing the rest of them again; he wasn’t amused anymore, but he wasn’t upset either, and Lin imagined a lot of that was because he still had one arm wrapped around the woman he loved while she leaned into his side.  “Anyway.  I was there for Zechs’ little post _Libra_ meltdown that had us scrambling to keep Europe from falling into chaos, and he needed a security net, and that was technically what I’d gotten hired on for with _Libra_ anyway.  So I said I’d consult on it before moving to wherever he needed me most.  Played the friendship card, said I’d be there for him and we’d get the nightmare figured out somehow.  All my public work history shows me as a temporary consultant anyway, never a founder or integral member, so it fit my MO.” 

            “So what did they do to spark the reign of terror?” Cassidy asked. 

            Suddenly, the broad, mischievous grin was back.  “Oh, no, I gave them enough help to seem legit, but otherwise I went out of my way to be the most overbearing, paranoid asshat possible; poking holes even in good work and driving them up the wall because they couldn’t actually tell me no or get rid of me.  Kept them feeling like they were standing on the edge of a cliff because I was the infallible friend of the dictator signing their checks, and played _king_ of passive aggressive knives in the back.  I got two different guys dismissed for stupid reasons and I actually went out of my way to fuck up the lead’s sleep cycles hardcore – though I don’t think he ever realized I was behind it.  It seriously took him almost three months to get a normal circadian rhythm again after I left.” 

            _… **Wow**._  

            Mai laughed.  “So what happened after that?  You get bored?” 

            He snickered.  “Nah, eventually someone got brave enough to file a series of complaints or went begging to Zechs or something because I was more or less forcibly transferred over to the manhunt, where zealotry was more appreciated.” 

            _Where you then proceeded to thoroughly sabotage the hunt for the pilots while feeding the actual intel to Treize and still made it look like progress.  And you made yourself look **damn good** while you did it._   He wasn’t sure if he should be horrified or impressed.  

            Mai’s eyes sparkled; obviously she was of the latter opinion.  “You’re _evil_.” 

            He just snickered, smoothing a hand over Relena’s hip.  “In my defense, it took a lot longer than I expected for them to grow spines and manage it.  I’m pretty sure Dorothy told Zechs I was being damned inefficient a solid two months before push came to shove, but I had this whole campaign running about quality over efficiency that was absolute bullshit.  I was ready to have a public meltdown about being proven wrong and everything when I got called out on it, but no one ever did.”  He started snickering again like he couldn’t help it, all naughty schoolboy.  “I bet they spread rumors, and that’s why they pushed through your double promotion without any questions,” he realized, meeting Lin’s eyes.  “No one wanted to deal with me in a snit after that whole throw down.” 

            That… made a sad amount of sense. 

            Cassidy snorted.  “So you had them sleep-deprived, fearing for their jobs, and probably going to absurd lengths trying to placate you for how long before you dialed it up to full revolt?” 

            A smirk.  “Four, maybe five months.” 

            Relena huffed.  “Ignoring, for the moment, _why_ you did this, why did David bring them up?” 

            Jake’s eyes danced.  “IT sent him a warning the other day that there was a Regime database compromise.  Someone built a back door into the entire mainframe, and no one knows how long it’s been there.  They _just_ found it.” 

            Mailin choked out a laugh, covering her mouth.  “And it’s been there since…?” 

            The grin was sharp now.  “Oh… Valentine’s Day 196?” 

            Relena started to laugh helplessly, dropping her head to his neck. 

            “That’s not going to cause problems for Treize, will it?” Lin asked.  He knew better than to ask if it could be linked back to them.  Jake was better than that, and he wouldn’t be acting like this if it was a concern. 

            He made an amused noise.  “I made it, but I never used it.  I wanted it to look like it was designed for someone’s particular use but with open utility, at best maybe start a chase to waste resources on, but I honestly figured they’d find it after a few months.  The design is such that no one should be able to track IPs through it directly, but it was always meant to be a red herring – so if they managed to tag a worm onto a file someone grabbed, it would lead to someone _other_ than Treize and cast suspicion away from our people.  He has enough higher ups in the Regime with extensive access that there would be no point to something like this.” 

            “And it’s also one hell of a ‘fuck you’ to Zechs,” Mai added happily. 

            He smirked.  “That may have been the original idea, yeah.  After it hit the six month mark I figured there was a good chance someone may have stumbled across and sealed it, but I never looked after I hid it; didn’t want to chance drawing attention there.  It’s entirely possible someone found it and made some adjustments to keep it better hidden over time, but I built it to look like a hacker stumbled across the remnants of an original programmer’s testing beta back door and turned it into something functional; that way even if they locked in the timeframe to narrow down when it popped up, I’d have plausible deniability.” 

            He rolled his eyes and suddenly, despite his clothes and the arm he still had wrapped possessively around the princess, the careworn computer nerd was back, settled deep in his stance.  “You know… I was stressed, worried about Lu and barely sleeping, working on securing this _huuuuuge_ infrastructure with maybe a quarter of RLTT’s security conflicts.  Maybe I forgot to delete all my quirks out of the BIOS once we got it up and running?  It’s never happened before, but… shit, Zechs, how many hours a night were _you_ getting back then?  Looking back, it all starts to get a little blurry.” 

            Relena started giggling again, softly enough that they were silent, but it still made Jake break character as he smiled and pressed his lips to the side of her neck for a moment, burying his nose in the hair tucked behind one ear before speaking again.  “In any case, there’s a reason I built you your own little firewall once we started working together.  I’ve been insisting that I thought the network security was shitty since it was made, and I’m a paranoid bastard, so now I get to raise a fuss about being right.” 

            “Because you sabotaged it yourself.” 

            Jake shrugged, wrapping his other arm around Relena again.  “I do good work?” 

            “Because you have an efficient skill set for subterfuge,” Cassidy added agreeably, eyes dancing. 

            “You know, I’m never getting away from that one, so I’m just going to rock it.  Yes.  Yes, I do.” 

-

***

-

**Brussels, Belgium**

            _It’s done.  Take that, you cagey bastards._ Noe closed his eyes, knuckling his forehead, and _breathed_. 

            Everything had gone according to plan; better than he had realistically hoped.  _And it sent the message we needed._   It would be some time before Romefeller tried something like this again.  It would make any potential insurgents that the bastards might try allying with think twice. 

            Unfortunately, it _would_ happen again.  Success now only bought more time, and he had warned Milliardo before he left: this would be a sliding scale, once it began.  Kindra’s work would help mitigate the damage, give them a little more breathing room, but after the Fall and the jaded view of a population that had seen more than three generations of heavy casualties?  This couldn’t be anything _but_ a decline. 

            But it _had_ to be done.  It was the only way to stall Romefeller long enough for other steps to be taken that had any reasonable chance of success.  He was already resigned to being remembered for the coming months.  That hurt… but it didn’t change the necessity. 

            He’d always been scornful of people talking about the ends justifying the means, before he’d found humanity in a position that made it straight reality.  He hadn’t been a part of White Fang, God no; he’d been in retirement for ten years before Milliardo had come to personally convince him he needed help cleaning up the mess he’d made.  In the end, it hadn’t been that hard of a decision; the last of his line had ended in the aftermath of Operation Daybreak. 

            In some ways, it was their loss that made him ideal for his position.  No divided loyalties; no love lost for Khushrenada’s leftovers any more than Barton’s.  Yet he still carried all the experience from his days as one of Dermail’s favorite enforcers; he knew how these Romefeller asswipes thought, how they subverted and conquered… how to make them back down, at least temporarily. 

            The problem was two-fold; temporary was the best they could manage, and the same tactics that would strengthen them against Romefeller had a damn high likelihood of exposing their flanks to Po’s Insurgence in the long-term.  _Short-term_ , done right with Kindra, and they might be able to rebuff them well enough to mitigate the future exposure, especially if they took the bait… but he’d already lost enough gambles against the woman that he didn’t care for the odds. 

            Romefeller was one thing; Po and whoever she had on her staff maneuvered enough like _Treize_ to make him snarl. 

            “General Lee?”  

            “Expand the perimeter and lock it down,” he ordered, leaning back in his chair.  The terrain of the northern border was such that the same tactic they’d used on Sanc after its initial collapse would be more than three times as effective – and that before considering the advances in technology since 182.  “Turrets in Sigma configuration at the borders as soon as is feasible; active MS patrol until it’s constructed.” 

            “…Sir?” 

            Noe eyes his panel of techs derisively, swallowing down bile as he played his role.  “The insurgents never surrendered, and they certainly didn’t fight to their last.  Instead, they went to ground, leaving us with little information and no recourse.  What we _do_ know, is that they had outside assistance. 

            “This, ladies and gentleman, has become a quarantine.” 

            Detainment might be more accurate, especially if there was any truth to the intelligence suggesting Hilde Schbeiker had been in the area before the initial violence began; the losses might be worth it just to contain the little bitch, but she had too long a history of sliding through his nets and appearing somewhere else entirely for him to count on it.  Sometimes, it seemed like the woman was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  If she appeared somewhere inside the next few days, he’d dismiss the suspicion, but for now, hunting for her inside their new rebellion zone would remain a priority. 

            Not that that was the point – only a potential bonus.  Romefeller responded best to the practices they preached, and this was one he was well familiar with.  _Deterrent,_ he thought grimly as his techs began following orders – first hesitantly, then with resolve as the idea settled in.  The more pure hearted of them probably thought it was a measure that would be rescinded after a thorough scour of the area, or at least expected a lightening of ordinances after a period of time where the area proved peaceable again. 

            Unfortunately, Romefeller would perceive that as weakness – therein laid the key weakness to this entire campaign. 

            They had just entered a war of attrition; hopefully they could hold long enough for the rest of the pieces to fall into place. 

            _God help us all._   If it worked, maybe the history books would laud him as well as condemn. 

-

***

-

**November 5 th 198 – Tuesday – Soleil Coalition Fleet**

            “Well look at you!” Ryder announced happily as he pulled her into a hug.  “Damn, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.  I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.” 

            Mu barked out a laugh as she hugged her friend back with just as much fervor, shoving away her disbelief.  “You _asshole_ ,” she muttered, willing tears away.  “You were on the casualty lists!”  They’d never been _close_ , exactly, but they’d served together enough times that she’d felt the loss.  It had only been one more drop in the ocean, but still. 

            He gasped, but refused to let up his grip on her when she drove an fist into his ribcage, sputtering out a laugh instead.  “Why’d you think I couldn’t say?” he returned breathlessly.  “The dead don’t talk, and if I was alive when I’m the dumbass who pulled his Excellency back out of the line of fire, too many questions would get asked.  I haven’t been dirtside in almost three damn years; it sucks.” 

            She didn’t answer, just buried her face in his chest as she wrapped both arms around him again and tried to sniff back the tears.  Logically, that made sense; while Treize had made planetfall a handful of times and returned to space since the disaster of _Libra_ , those trips had been deemed critical, where the risk of orders being intercepted was greater than a few calculated breaches. 

            “Anyway, you’re not getting away from me now,” he continued cheerfully, still not letting her go.  “Dunno what you’ve been up to, but I’ve done pretty good for myself since the Fall.  Welcome to the _Dantes_ , central command of the Soleil Coalition.”  He pulled back enough that she could see his fierce grin.  “My _own personal cruiser_.  Funny how dreams come true, huh?” 

            Mu couldn’t decide if she wanted to groan or laugh appreciatively.  “You named your ship after the count of Monte Cristo?” 

            His grin only widened.  “It’s a good name; it fits.”  Finally stepping back, he kept a hold on her hand and started tugging her down the hall after him.  “Come on.  Treize wanted to greet you himself, but it’s the middle of our night cycle, so you have time to get settled in first, instead.” 

            “You stayed up to meet me?” she asked, shifting the strap of her back a little higher as she let herself be led. 

            Ryder made an annoyed noise.  “I would’ve liked to, but no; I’m pretty strict to swing shift, and the Regime’s turned out to be a lot more capable than we were projecting.  They’re hounding this part of the fleet at all hours, so we’re ready around the clock until we’ve got them in a good spot to show our full colors.  I’m heading to bed once I’ve dropped you off.”  Glancing back, he added, “You’ll be on days, with Treize and the rest of the big wigs, so you should try to get a nap in before morning call.” 

            “How severe is the situation?” she demanded, hungry for more information.  The intelligence she’d had access to on her transport had been minimal for security reasons, but despite the seemingly endless delays she had _finally_ made it to the center of Treize’s web, for better or worse.  “The skirmishes are wreaking absolute havoc on the star lanes; I should have been here a week ago.” 

            “It’s not what we expected, but it’s not a problem either,” Ryder dismissed.  “Minimal casualties on our side, just…”  He waved a hand.  “Busy.  A lot of little clashes that aren’t amounting to anything instead of significant progress on either side.  Nothing close to what just went down in Veneto or Milan.  The Regime isn’t playing the game the way we expected, but so far that’s not a bad thing either.” 

            _Veneto?  Milan?_   She frowned.  _Italy?_   “Captain Duncan, I’ve just spent the past nine days in one dead zone of space after another; the net connections we could get were reserved for crew.  What happened in Italy?” 

            “ _Commodore_ Duncan,” he corrected, tossing a roguish grin back at her.  “And a failed rebellion of some sort.  I don’t know much about it, beyond the fact that it was brutal, and _not_ for the Regime.”  He shook his head, focusing down the hall again, taking them through a handful of twists and turns Mu knew for a fact she wasn’t going to remember how to navigate.  “Maybe you should skip the nap and just power through the day, spend the time catching up.  I made sure you have full access here, and I’ve got a list of topics for you to prioritize; not sure who put it together, but it’s in your inbox.  They knew you’d need _some_ time to catch up, but with things how they are, we can’t give you what you deserve.” 

            “I just served six months under Colonel Jake Miller,” she announced, not resisting the way her lips twisted into a smirk.  “We’ve been pulling eighteen or twenty hour days regulating the entire damn Foreign Affairs department on top of being Princess Darlian-Peacecraft’s detail; I’ll get by just fine.”  Honestly, she imagined the pace here would be considerably more sedate than the psychosis of sixteen people managing Relena’s schemes, RLTT candidacy, and an entire branch of government my themselves. 

            If she hadn’t actively been a part of that nightmare, she wasn’t sure she’d believe it was _possible_.  For the most part, she’d avoided getting too depressed while at Sarracenia just because there wasn’t _time_ for it after Relena’s appointment as Minister. 

            Ryder whistled lowly, shaking his head as he let go of her hand to punch his code into a keypad.  “Nice.  You went from one RLTT candidate to the other.  No one can say you aren’t good for it, if nothing else.  Things slowed down for a while when we were deep in all the prep stages, and then I got the impression that we were given pretty free reign over the summer, but we’re almost as deep here with RLTT as we are the Winners.” 

            Her stomach dropped in surprise for a moment before amused resignation replaced it.  _Well, at least we aren’t understaffed._   Half of the pace of Relena’s household had been the way the Fund snapped at their heels any time a project started to stagnate; it was a wonder they’d managed to keep up with physical conditioning, but somehow Jake had always managed to balance it out, if just barely.  If she didn’t know from experience that the man was such a moody son of a bitch on less than six hours of sleep, she’d think he never rested at all. 

            The door to a small bedroom opened, and Ryder gestured her in.  “Someone will be by in the morning to orient you, get you set up with security and everything else you’ll need,” he continued, pulling his wallet out of one pocket and starting to rifle through it.  “Bathroom is two doors down that way,” he gestured, “and you share it with the other female execs and pilots we’ve got on board.  Ah.”  Pulling out a business card, he grinned and reached past the doorway without entering, handing it to her.  “That code will open both this door and the bathroom for twelve hours after its first use, so that’ll be fine until we get you properly in system in a few hours; if it doesn’t work, you’re at the wrong door.  The sign-in on there is unique to you, and one you’ll keep – change the password as soon as you open it, and you’ll have full access to the files and your email.  Don’t be surprised if his Excellency or Blaine check in on you via mail before you figure anyone’s up; they’re both early risers.  If you need anything else, use the com.”  He gestured at the speaker set in the wall with handful of buttons and dials as he tucked his wallet away again.  “I think that’s everything.” 

            She smiled, dropping her bag and going back to the door to hug him again, feeling lighter than she would have imagined possible.  “I’ll be fine.  Get some sleep; I’ll find you so we can catch up, once I get a chance.”  Everyone who needed to be battle ready would be on strict shifts, but she doubted she was part of that group anymore – if this was anything like her last assignment, she’d be up late enough to at least catch a meal with an old friend now and again. 

            “I’ll look forward to it,” he promised, squeezing hard enough that for a second it was hard to breathe before releasing her and stepping back again.  “Make yourself at home; I’ll see you around.” 

-

***

-

**Southern Sudan – Blue Nile Base – Officer’s Quarters**

            **_“-the devastation of both homes and life.”_**  

            Rashid sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his good hand.  “Am I suffering a misconception from living so long without television,” he asked, tone dry.  “Or does everyone else agree that this sounds as insincere as ever?” 

            “Oh, lack of exposure likely makes it _worse_ ,” Abdul returned happily, smile sharp as ever.  “But perhaps still…”  He tipped his head as though thinking hard,  “decidedly duplicitous?” 

            Sometimes, he thought if he managed to catch the other man unawares, he’d find him recreationally parsing through a dictionary.  _Him and Auda both._   Quatre had always been the same way, but less… consciously.  With Master Quatre, it had always felt as thought he didn’t realize words like ‘perfidious’ weren’t part of common vocabulary. 

            …Though maybe they had all started trying to expand their English a little aggressively, after first meeting the Winner Heir in 193.  However amusing it was to watch the little blonde blush when he realized he was effectively speaking a different language without meaning to, it had been a little mortifying too. 

            **_“-must show a united front.  Terrorists feed on fear, and we will_** _not **allow our people to be victimized again.  We cannot, in good conscience, allow this to stand.  We must respond.  These are tumultuous times; they were even before** Libra **, and despite all our hopes, it’s become clear that the efforts we have made to prevent more senseless violence has not been enough.  The people have pulled together through crisis after crisis to get us to where we are today, and it’s nothing short of remarkable – but unfortunately, this latest incident in Italy has proven that it’s just not enough.**_

 ** _“We must do_** _more **.  The people** must **be protected.”**_  

            “I don’t like where this is going,” Rashid admitted, closing his eyes and leaning back in his padded recliner. 

            “It _is_ a fairly ominous start,” Abdul agreed.  “Historically speaking, this is where they impose curfews and force a military presence into most decently sized cities.” 

            “They lack the manpower for it,” Rashid argued tiredly, ignoring the screen. 

            “Technically speaking, they have the militia,” his friend pointed out. 

            He opened his eyes again at that, eying the other man.  “The militia is only what the name implies: deputized citizens.  It would not be so simple as that.” 

            “ _Unless_ they put the right spin on it,” Abdul argued.  He gestured back at the screen, eyes unreadable behind his glasses.  “The militia belongs to Relena, but only in theory.  If they win over enough of the right people, then this carries _Relena’s_ weight of approval too, and I judge that to be an immediate goal.”  He tipped his head again, smile returning.  “Though that may be difficult, given the princess’ rather public display last Saturday.” 

            Rashid pinched the bridge of his nose.  _Politics._   It was a nightmare he had never been equipped to handle.  _We need Quatre._   Lucrezia was good, but the Noins hadn’t been nobility in four generations, and Quatre’s background was irreplaceable.  _Where are you, old friend?_   He didn’t want to think the worst, but surely he would have come back to them by now, if he could? 

            _Unless he felt he was needed elsewhere.  Unless he felt unworthy, again._   The self-esteem issues the boy inflicted upon himself were crippling, for all that he snarled like a cat rubbed the wrong way when they tried to step in on those aspects for him.  Working with Lucrezia was refreshing, on that front; she knew herself well enough to step into her strengths and sidestep her weaknesses without hesitation. 

            Hopefully it was a skill the young man would inherit with time. 

            The television was still droning on, but he’d lost all interest in listening to the Regime’s latest lies; he hadn’t missed the propaganda, the last six months.  _Getting used to modern media again, I suspect, is going to be something of a chore._  

            At the same time, however, he was supposed to be resting; if he got out of bed again before supper, the good doctor would have his head.  “Can you put something a little more cheerful on?” 

**-**

**-**

**-**

**-**

**  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Favorites? Theories? The Winners are, like… everywhere, I swear, and even so, I still think you might be missing as many as three of them. Also, hey, Treize and his allies finally have a real name! 
> 
> If you were curious, the meme/joke Taylor Cavanaugh is alluding to in his and Priya's scene is real, and something my husband and friends laughed ourselves silly about... though it's been almost 10 years since it was big. If you're curious, it's about a fictional energy drink named Powerthirst - it's worth a good laugh, and it was just too good to not make jokes about with the context of having the last name 'Winner'. 
> 
> As I said at the start of this chapter, we've finally reached the end of the edit. The next chapter is about halfway written... but I'm very excited and eager to dig back into new material now that the refresher and cleanup is done. 
> 
> This story stalled out a while ago for a slew of reasons that I've largely removed now, and the refresher of combing through the entire story with a fine-toother comb has helped eradicate what was left. The only remaining antagonist at this point is my own slip-slide health issues... which are also tamed down. I'm determined to actually FINISH this story, damn it... it's taken way too long already. 
> 
> When the next chapter goes up, the story will also be fully up to date on ff.net as well; since we split one chapter and it would look like a fake new chapter to update it now, that'll be done literally just prior to the post of the new chapter. 
> 
> Hope to have the next piece up soon. There's not too much of Sedition left before we move onto the finale.

**Author's Note:**

> Relationship tags will be added to the story as the characters start to lean into them, but to start with, Duo's the only one who progressed with romantic entaglements. That /will/ change, but the first few chapters are pretty general... and of course, some characters stay out of that because seriously, Mariemaia is only twelve. All things said, however, I'm still very new to the tags system, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions on that front, please do let me know!
> 
> As of posting this to Archive of Our Own, this series has been updated. The majority of the changes are minor typos and grammatical turn of phrase, but there are also a handful of larger changes where a little bit of additional detail has been added for continuity, without any changes to plot - though the majority of those should be in Survival, not Sedition. For the sake of people rereading for those additional details or tweaking, any gross changes from the edit are noted at the beginning of each chapter.
> 
> For the moment, fanfiction.net still has the old version, but it should be updated soon. If you're reading this in time with my posting, however, I would recommend sticking with the AO3 version for now.


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